Small Role Mobster Gets Six Month Sentence In Gambling Case

The Chicago mob took a big hit when police busted an illegal gambling operation that was being run. One of the smaller, but important figures in that bust was sentenced today after pleading guilty.

Dennis Johnson was sentenced in Federal court today to the smallest sentence allowable under federal guidelines. He received six months in prison to be followed by three years of probation.

His role in the gambling operation was to alter video games and turn them into gambling devices. He and his brother worked for M&M Entertainment. His brother has also plead guilty but has not yet been sentenced.

The leader of the mob crew, Michael "Mickey" Marcelo was the one that the police were really looking to take down. Along with the gambling charges, he is also facing charges that he ran the company as a racketeering enterprise.

Johnson received leniency from the judge for getting his life together in the months since he was arrested. "He was a small cog in the large wheel of the Outfit," said one of the three prosecutors in the case, Markus Funk.

Marcello has already been sentenced to eight years for allegedly trying to tamper with a witness. He was sending the wife of the prosecutors star witness, Nicholas Calabrese, $4,000 a month in hush money to keep her husband from talking.

July 10, 2008
Posted By Larry Rutherford
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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