ARTICLE: Sisters of gambling kingpin sentenced to prison

[Louis Cypher]

Thursday, September 11, 2003

By Torsten Ove, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

With their brother already in federal prison in West Virginia, two sisters of gambling kingpin Adolph "Junior" Williams are also on their way to the lockup for their role in the family's multi-million-dollar numbers operation.

Joanne Williams, 58, of Carnegie, was sentenced yesterday to eight months in prison, and Antoinette DePofi, 62, of Scott, received four months.

Both were also fined $2,000 and ordered to remain on home detention for four months after they get out of jail.

The sisters join another sister, Phyllis Caliguiri, 71, of Carnegie, in pleading guilty to helping run numbers. Caliguiri is serving probation.

Another brother, Eugene Williams, 52, of Scott, will be sentenced Oct. 10.

Yesterday's sentences are the beginning of the end for the massive gambling ring, which netted about $2.5 million a year drawing numbers based on the Pennsylvania Lottery.

Next week and the week after, nine more members will be sentenced in federal court. Five others have already been sentenced.

Ringleader Adolph Williams, 69, of Scott, pleaded guilty in March and was sentenced in July to two years at the federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va. That sentence was tacked onto another two-year term for violating the terms of his 1996 release from prison, where he'd been sent after pleading guilty in the mid-1990s to running the same gambling enterprise.

The Williams gang, which once had ties to the Pittsburgh Mafia, has been running numbers for years and even continued to operate while Adolph Williams and another brother, Salvatore, were in prison. Salvatore is the only family member who wasn't indicted this time around.

The latest investigation, spearheaded by the Criminal Investigation Division of the IRS, state police and the FBI, had been going on for at least five years.

Agents built the case using information from informants and cooperating witnesses, then secured taps on cell phones and a fax line. They then searched homes owned by Adolph Williams, DePofi, Caliguiri, Joanne Williams and Adolph Williams' daughter, Carla Williams, and her business, EZ Tanning and Nails.

The government has moved to forfeit $4 million in cash and all of the assets Adolph Williams bought with his gambling money in what will rank among the largest forfeitures here in recent years.

Those assets include a house owned by one of his daughters; condominiums at Seven Springs Resort; two boats; a hunting camp in Tionesta, Forest County; an apartment in Miami; a hotel; two horse trailers; a Rolex watch; and valuable coins.