Federal judge rules that former Colombo Street Boss Tommy Shots must use lawsuit proceeds to pay restitution to victims

Federal judge rules that former Colombo Street Boss Tommy Shots must use lawsuit proceeds to pay restitution to victims

  July 12, 2022    Dapper_Don

---

A clumsy Colombo mobster who famously scored a $250,000 settlement for a Brooklyn federal jailhouse Ping-Pong injury won’t be able to keep his slip-and-fall windfall.

A federal judge ruled that Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli will have to use his portion of the lawsuit cash, more than $182,000, to pay restitution to his victims as part of his 18-and-a-half year prison sentence.

Gioeli argued in recent court filings that the federal government was trying to “claw back” the settlement money so it could be “rewarded for the fruits of its own bad behavior.” Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Brian Cogan disagreed.

“The only thing of which defendant is being deprived is the unrestricted decision on how to apply this newly acquired asset,” Cogan wrote in a July 5 ruling. “What defendant really wants to do is stiff the government on his forfeiture obligation and spend the money on something he would prefer. But the law doesn’t permit that.”

The murderous street boss was playing Ping-Pong in an open area at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn on Aug. 29, 2013, when the ball got away from him.

He went to retrieve it in an area close to shower stalls and a leaking slop sink, slipped in a puddle and fractured his kneecap. He filed a $10-million lawsuit after the injury.

Cogan had earlier ruled that Gioeli’s $360,000 restitution bill should go to compensate a Chemical Bank branch and a business named Furs by Mina.

Gioeli tried to convince the judge to let him keep the settlement cash to help pay for his cancer treatments after he finishes his prison sentence.

Gioeli, now 70, was convicted at a 2012 federal racketeering trial for conspiring to kill supporters of then-family boss Victor “Little Vic” Orena during a war for control of the Colombo family.

He headed a faction loyal to imprisoned head Carmine “Junior” Persico, and was bumped up to street boss during the bloody conflict, which claimed 13 lives, including a teen bagel shop worker gunned down in a case of mistaken identity.

Cogan has twice denied Gioeli, who suffers from bladder cancer, compassionate release from prison — first in May 2020, when the ailing gangster feared catching COVID at the height of the pandemic, and again in March.

According to court papers, Gioeli was diagnosed last year with a recurrence of bladder cancer followed by surgery and receives weekly hormone injections. The cancer’s return followed an 18-month stretch where Gioeli received no follow-up medical treatment behind bars, court papers said.

The judge ruled in March that Gioeli’s Mafia resume was so “heinous” that it outweighed any request for compassionate release.

https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/ny-mobster-loses-fight-ping-pong-settlement-thomas-gioeli-tommy-shots-20220712-j7tn2cyktfdh7abknzo5nk6y7q-story.html