Gamblor’s World

Author: Whelan, Jeff
Source: Newark Star-Ledger
Published: Dec 14, 06

Full Document:
NEWARK – Frank Palmer and Michael Ferrante were two high school buddies from Verona who’d gone their separate ways.
Palmer landed a job at Ernst & Young, a large accounting firm, and Ferrante became a small-time bookie.

But a chance meeting at the Verona Inn five years ago brought them together again, and when their worlds of high finance and illegal sports betting collided, their gambling addictions set them up for a big fall. The two old pals found themselves in federal District Court in Newark yesterday, where Judge William Martini sentenced them for their roles in a scheme that involved stealing more than $267,000 from the accounting firm to pay off gambling debts to an alleged mobster. Martini called it a “tragic situation” and said he was flabbergasted by how gambling took such a toll on two men with promising futures. In sentencing Ferrante to a year and a day in prison, he noted the defendant had blown a half-million dollars on sports betting, including a $150,000 inheritance from his grandmother. “This is the most significant gambling addiction case I’ve seen yet,” Martini said as Ferrante closed his eyes and hung his head and his mother wept in the back of the courtroom. Ferrante, 30, told the judge that despite psychiatric treatment and medication, he continues to battle addiction. “The gambling addiction, I just can’t stop it,” said Ferrante, dressed in a gray suit and sporting a shaved head. “I just can’t get a handle on it.” The judge shot back, “So what are you going to do? Ruin your life?” He wondered aloud whether a longer stint in jail was what Ferrante needed, but instead ordered him into further counseling. Later Palmer, 32, a financial analyst who wore a black suit and also had closely cropped hair, appeared before the judge in a separate hearing. Martini sentenced him to five years of probation, including eight months of home confinement. “I am extremely disappointed in myself, embarrassed,” said Palmer, fighting back tears as his mother dabbed her own eyes with a tissue. “Sports betting was a vice that had me back in 2001.” Both had cooperated with federal prosecutors and helped put Mimmo Marzullo, who according to authorities is a member of the DeCavalcante crime family, behind bars. Marzullo was sentenced to 29 months for illegal gambling and extortion. They also testified against one of their co-defendants, Keith Cimera, helping prosecutors convict him for his role in the scheme to steal from the accounting firm. Cimera was sentenced to 27 months. Ferrante and Palmer could have faced much stiffer sentences, but Assistant U.S. Attorney Ronald Wigler sought and received leniency for them, saying they’d put themselves and their families at risk. Palmer and Ferrante had drifted apart since high school, but they bumped into each other at the Verona Inn about five years ago. By then, Ferrante, a graduate of Caldwell College, was a small-time bookie with a ring of clients who consisted mostly of old buddies from his hometown, according to court records. “It started back in high school. It started with football, started with friends,” Stephen Turano, Ferrante’s attorney, said in court yesterday. Ferrante was in the gambling business with Marzullo, prosecutors said. He arranged loans for gamblers from Marzullo, the owner of Marzullo Brothers’ Deli in Montclair and a Newark restaurant. The loans gathered 3 percent interest each week and welchers faced threats of beatings, admitted Ferrante, who said he kept one-third of the interest for himself. INSATIABLE HABIT Turano, however, said Ferrante’s earnings fed his own gambling habit. The attorney said that when Marzullo cut Ferrante off from gambling, he made up the names of fake clients to hide his identity from the loanshark so he could keep betting. Palmer — betting on sports through a mutual friend — also had developed a nasty gambling habit, starting off with a few hundred dollars a week and eventually wagering thousands. By November of 2001, he was $3,000 in the hole, and Ferrante took him to meet Marzullo. But Palmer kept losing, and his debts piled up. That’s when, according to court records, Ferrante asked Palmer to start stealing money from Ernst & Young, where he had access to checks. Ferrante had a guy who could cash them: Cimera, the manager of Montclair Check Cashing. Ferrante previously had brought hundreds of checks there for Marzullo, and eventually cashed $8,579 worth of checks he’d stolen from his own employer, Nextel Communications, according to prosecutors. ‘FOUND MONEY’ Palmer was in. When he met Cimera, he told him the Ernst & Young checks were like “found money,” court papers show. Cimera kept 60 percent of the proceeds from the stolen checks. Ferrante’s cut was one-third while Palmer received a meager 10 percent, which was applied toward his debt. At one meeting, in the parking lot of the Forum Menswear store in Caldwell, Cimera pointed to the nearby Essex County prison and joked to Palmer, saying, “We’ll be visiting Michael (Ferrante) up there,” according to court documents. And sure enough, by June 2002, the conspiracy began to unravel when the accounting directors at Ernst & Young’s national finance office discovered three checks that had been falsely endorsed. Ferrante told Palmer to deny everything, but he soon confessed to the accountants, and later to FBI agents. Palmer began cooperating with the FBI, and secretly recorded 20 conversations with Ferrante. Soon Ferrante, too, began cooperating. Both eventually pleaded guilty: Palmer to conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud and interstate transportation of stolen goods, Ferrante to conducting an illegal gambling business, conspiracy to make extortionate loans, and conspiracy to transport stolen property across state lines. The judge urged Palmer to kick his habit once and for all. “If he’s still gambling, he’s going to end up back here,” he said.