CONNECTICUT – A federal judge sentenced a 66-year-old man to nearly three years in prison for extorting money from a small business owner by playing the role of a mobster, officials said.
U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant sentenced Edward Memoli, 66, of Unadilla, N.Y., to two years and 11 months in prison and ordered him to pay $26,000 as restitution to the victim of his scheme.
On October 30, 2014, a jury found Memoli guilty of one count of conspiracy to obstruct interstate commerce by extortion and one count of aiding and abetting the obstruction of interstate commerce by extortion.
The evidence indicated that between September 2010 and December 2011, Memoli conspired with Joseph Casolo of Norwalk to extort money from a small business owner in Fairfield County by impersonating organized crime figures.
Casolo threatened the victim in person, in phone conversations and in text messages using multiple personas, repeatedly stating or implying that if the victim failed to make the extortion payments, the victim, the victim’s spouse, and the victim’s daughter would be harmed with violence.
Casolo got Memoli, who dentified himself as “Lorenzo,” the organized crime family’s “enforcer,” to make at least 20 threatening calls from a restricted telephone number to the victim.
During this time, Memoli lived in Greenville, South Carolina.
Memoli threatened that business owner’s daughter, who was pregnant, would have a miscarriage if the extortion payments were not made, the evidence showed.
The investigation revealed that the victim made more than $200,000 in cash payments to Casolo as a result of these threats. Casolo shared some of the money with Memoli and sent the cash via Western Union money transfer.
Casolo and Memoli also targeted another Fairfield County resident for extortion. Posing as “Lorenzo,” Memoli made calls to the victim’s cellular telephone and the victim’s place of work where Memolimade veiled threats to the victim’s wife and two children.
Law enforcement discovered the scheme concocted by Casolo and Memoli while they were doing a court-authorized wiretap investigating actual and unrelated organized crime activity in Fairfield County.
Casolo pleaded guilty to one count of extortion. He was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison, officials said.
Memoli was ordered to report to prison on July 10.