Three defendants pleaded guilty on July 28 in the federal poker-rigging case that prosecutors say was built around a Mafia-backed cheating network using concealed technology and coordinated teams to drain victims at illegal high-stakes games. Joseph Lanni pleaded guilty a day earlier, bringing the total to 15 guilty pleas from 31 defendants charged.
According to a Casino.org report, Angelo Ruggiero Jr., Nicholas Minucci and Shane Hennen pleaded guilty on July 28 to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Joseph Lanni pleaded guilty a day earlier to operating an illegal gambling business. Ruggiero Jr. was identified as 53, Minucci as 39, Hennen as 41 and Lanni as 54.
The indictment says the scheme had been underway by at least 2019. It centred on illegal poker games around Washington Place in Manhattan.
Victims believed they were sitting in straight games and gambling on equal footing, the indictment said. In reality, cheating teams used advanced wireless technologies to read cards dealt in each poker hand and relay that information to defendants and co-conspirators participating in the illegal poker games.
The indictment said the Washington Place and Lexington Avenue games were on record with members and associates of La Cosa Nostra, who provided support and protection and collected debts for a share of the gambling proceeds. Prosecutors also said former NBA players Chauncey Billups and Damon Jones were present at some games, helping lend legitimacy to the operation.
Hennen drew separate attention. He was described as a convicted drug dealer and former pool hustler who later became a sports-betting influencer, and prosecutors alleged he supplied the concealed technology, took part in the games and was the common thread between the poker ring and two sports-betting cheating cases. Those cases included an alleged point-shaving scheme involving NCAA Division I basketball and China’s CBA, and a betting scheme involving former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter, in which under prop bets were placed before January and March 2024 games after inside information that Porter would deliberately limit his performance.
USA TODAY later reported that the alleged poker ring also used rigged shuffling machines, X-ray tables, special sunglasses and contact lenses, a card-dealing machine and a chip tray with hidden cameras. It said investigators from Homeland Security Investigations, the FBI, the New York Waterfront Commission and the New York Police Department pieced together the case from phone and bank records, surveillance footage, witness testimony and images pulled from iCloud accounts.
Loss estimates varied. Homeland Security Investigations said victims were defrauded out of at least $7 million, while FBI Director Kash Patel described “tens of millions of dollars in fraud and theft and robbery across a multiyear investigation.” Authorities said some victims lost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time.
The indictment’s gambling-business count said the defendants and their co-conspirators ran an illegal poker business around Washington Place from roughly January 2021 to October 2023, involving at least five people and violating New York Penal Law sections 225.05 and 20.00. Several others, including alleged Bonanno figure Ernest Aiello, alleged Genovese member Matthew Daddino and former NBA player Chauncey Billups, are still fighting the charges.
