A reputed mobster arrested in Thursday’s explosive NBA gambling scandal pleaded guilty just last week to unrelated charges that he violently tried to take over the Big Apple’s garbage business.
Alleged Gambino capo Joseph Lanni, aka “Mommino,” was accused Thursday of taking part in a multimillion-dollar ring of rigged poker games run by mobsters who enlisted NBA notables — Portland Trail Blazers coach and former player Chancey Billups and ex-Cleveland Cavaliers hoopster Damon Jones — to attract victims to play.
Lanni’s arrest occurred less than a week after he pleaded guilty Oct. 17 alongside six other reputed wiseguys to heading a sprawling racket that used extortion, witness retaliation and other crimes to try to bring the city’s trash and demolition business under his control, prosecutors said at the time.
Lanni, 54, was hit with a new unrelated indictment Thursday charging him with one count of operation of an illegal gambling business for allegedly getting paid proceeds from the ill-gotten gains taken off victims in the poker games.
He pleaded not guilty in the new case and was freed over prosecutors’ objections to home detention Friday by a judge — who warned him that authorities would be “watching him like a hawk.”
The new case, which charged 31 people in all, including the two NBA greats, accuses Lanni and two other alleged Gambino crime family members of collecting payments from a group of people who staged underground poker games run out of 80 Washington Place in Greenwich Village.
The mobsters allegedly arranged for payments to Billups and Jones to act as “face cards” to attract victims who wanted the opportunity to play against a former pro athlete. The victims allegedly lost millions of dollars in the con, prosecutors claimed.
The feds asked that Lanni be held without bail pending trial in his new case on the grounds he has a history of criminal convictions and violence.
They noted that he also allegedly kept in touch with other made men while he was out free in the city trash business scheme, violating the conditions of his release.
Lanni — who lives on Staten Island and is also known as “Joe Brooklyn” — was first convicted in 1999 on securities fraud and sentenced to 2.5 years behind bars. He was convicted again in 2014 for promoting gambling and was hit with one year in jail, prosecutors said in court papers.
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The suspected mobster was also involved in allegedly intimidating a witness in 2021 who he and two others mobsters believed snitched on them, prosecutors alleged.
In addition, Lanni and alleged goon Vincent “Vinny Slick” Minsquero got into a wild confrontation with the married owners of a restaurant in Toms River, NJ, in September 2023 after the couple asked them to leave for getting into an argument with patrons.
Things reached a fever pitch when Lanni and his crony threatened to burn down the establishment “with you in it” and allegedly beat the couple up later that night, court papers alleged.
The mobbed-up duo allegedly went so far as to buy a gas container at a station across the street from the restaurant to make good on the threat. But they returned the container afterward, the feds claimed. They were not charged in that incident.
Lanni faces up to five years in prison if convicted on the new charge in the rigged gambling case. He’s yet to be sentenced for the racketeering conspiracy guilty plea, for which he could receive somewhere in the range of 6.5 to 8 years, a judge in that case said last week.
Lanni was hauled into Brooklyn federal court Thursday where he pleaded not guilty and was back in court again Friday for a detention hearing where Magistrate Judge Taryn Merkl agreed to free him to home detention on $500,000 bond backed by his wife and a friend.
Merkl set a slew of restrictions including that he stay out of trouble and refrain from threatening any witnesses and from contacting other wiseguys. She also ordered his internet use to be monitored by law enforcement and said he’d be subject to random home visits.
The judge warned Lanni that authorities would be “watching him like a hawk.”
Lanni declined to comment to reporters on his way out of court.
The rigged poker games were run from 2019 out of Miami, Las Vegas, the Hamptons and two locations in Manhattan, including the Washington Place townhouse where Kylie Jenner and Travis Scott lived in 2021 when the influencer was pregnant with their second child, authorities said.
The famous couple was not mentioned in the indictment, and there wasn’t any indication they knew what was going on.
Four of the five New York City La Cosa Nostra families were alleged to be involved in the fixed poker games: the Gambinos, Genoveses, Luccheses and Bonannos, according to prosecutors.
Meanwhile, a separate indictment, also unsealed Thursday, accused Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier, aka “Scary Terry,” and ex-Cleveland Cavaliers player Jones of doling out insider info on teams and players for bets on games.
While Billups was not charged in the second case, he is believed to be “Co-Conspirator 8” in its court papers, which allege he tipped off bettors that the Blazers were going to tank their March 24, 2023, game against the Chicago Bulls — a tip that netted the gamblers big winnings, court papers allege.
Billups and Rozier were placed on leave from their teams, according to the NBA, which said it was cooperating with the feds.
“We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness, and the integrity of our game remains our top priority,” the NBA said in a statement Thursday.
Lanni’s lawyers in the racketeering case did not immediately return a Post request for comment Friday morning. It was not immediately clear who is representing him in the new case.
No one answered the door at Lanni’s house during a Post visit there Friday, nor did anyone pick up the phone when The Post called numbers listed for him.
Additional reporting by Georgett Roberts and Erin Maher
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