John A. Gotti, son of late mob boss, tells judge that family going to prison was almost 'a rite of passage'

John A. "Junior" Gotti, the former acting boss of the Gambino crime family, said too many relatives of his notorious clan going to prison may have "desensitized" his nephew Carmine G. Agnello, who is being sentenced on Monday for stealing more than $1.1 million in COVID-19 funds.

"You would think he would learn from that but I think it just desensitized him. Sadly, in our family going to prison became almost a rite of passage," wrote Gotti who is appealing to the judge set to sentence Agnello, saying his nephew felt a "pressure to succeed, to live up to the Gotti name."

Gotti said his nephew is "deeply ashamed by his actions" and "wants to do the right thing and pay this money back."

Gotti, the son of late mob boss John J. Gotti, in a letter to the judge filed Friday by Agnello’s lawyer, said his nephew, who had tried to use his promise of a kidney donation to his mother as leverage to get probation, is "a good young man" who has "accepted responsibility" and has shown "genuine remorse."

"Carmine grew up in a situation he didn’t choose. Being part of the Gotti family meant growing up with too much attention, expectation and society’s judgment that most kids never have to deal with," Gotti said. "As your honor knows, Carmine’s grandfather, father and myself, as well as many other family members, have gone to prison."

Gotti said Agnello felt a "pressure to succeed, to live up to the Gotti name," that was even more amplified by the family’s involvement in the "Growing up Gotti" reality TV show, which starred Agnello and his two brothers. He "lost in a bitcoin scam" over $300,000 of the loan funds, which Gotti said was "his attempt to gamble the money in order to make more of it to save his business."

Meanwhile, in court papers filed Thursday in the case, the prosecution said Agnello, who recently withdrew his request to stay out of prison because he said he was donating a kidney to his mother, should receive no sentencing consideration connected to the potential organ donation.

Agnello, 40, of Oyster Bay, had requested to serve probation, a downward departure from federal sentencing guidelines on his guilty plea to one count of wire fraud, because he was planning to donate a kidney to his mother, Victoria Gotti, on March 30. Victoria Gotti is a sister of John "Junior" Gotti.

But in a letter to U.S. District Judge Nusrat J. Choudhury earlier this week, Agnello's newly hired lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, withdrew the request and apologized for the previous lawyer's "voluminous" filing on the issue. Instead, he asked for the judge to consider Agnello's mere "offer" to donate his kidney to his mother as an "exceptionally good deed."

The prosecution said it maintains its position that Agnello should serve 33 to 41 months in federal prison.

"That is a bridge too far," wrote Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles P. Kelly on Thursday. "The facts are that the oft-promised kidney donation has not happened and is not even scheduled to happen and the defendant's intention to donate his kidney, if required in the future, is too speculative to be considered." 

Agnello has pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud for receiving about $1.1 million from the Small Business Administration's Economic Injury Disaster Loan program under false pretenses. Prosecutors have said Agnello lied on the COVID loan forms, misstating the number of employees at his recycling business and what he planned to use the money for.

He also falsely said he didn't have a criminal record even though he was convicted of disorderly conduct for possessing a gravity knife in 2009 and pleaded guilty in 2018 to a misdemeanor for running an illegal auto recycling yard, prosecutors have said.

 Agnello secured the COVID loans for his Queens-based business, Crown Auto Parts & Recycling, but used the money to buy cryptocurrency, among other personal purchases, prosecutors said.

In his letter Thursday, Kelly also argued against claims made by Lichtman that Agnello didn't "outright" steal the money because he was operating a legitimate salvage business.

That was only true for the first $150,000 disbursement that Agnello received, the prosecutor said.

"Of the $1.1 million received by the defendant from COVID Aid funds, the only COVID funds distributed to the defendant while the business Crown Auto Parts and Recycling, was operating totaled $150,000," Kelly said. "The near million dollar balance was distributed when the business was closed and was used for his own personal purposes."

He applied for two more loans after the business closed in 2021, prosecutors said.

"It is significant that even after receiving almost a million dollars in loan modifications in the fall of 2021 when Crown had no operations, in 2022, defendant [Agnello] applied for another modification for Crown, to increase the loan amount to $2 million," Kelly said, adding that Agnello said at the time that his "business depends on it" and that he ran "a fairly large company that employs a good amount of people ... in which I refused to lay off anyone."

But, the prosecutor said: "Of course, at the time, the business was not operating and the employees had been laid off the year before."

The loan increase was denied, he said. 

Agnello's uncle also served time in prison. In 1999, Gotti was sentenced to 6 years and 5 months after he pleaded guilty to racketeering, bribery and extortion.

In 2009, Gotti’s fourth trial in five years on racketeering charges ended in a mistrial after a federal jury in Manhattan couldn’t reach a verdict.

His father died in federal prison.

Agnello's sentencing is set at the federal courthouse in Central Islip.