Newton Man Sentenced to Prison for Extortion and Gambling

BOSTON – A Newton man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Boston to seven years in prison for extortion and conducting an illegal gambling business.

Joseph Yerardi, 62, of Newton, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Denise J. Casper to seven years in prison and three years of supervised release. Judge Casper also issued an order forfeiting over $68,000 in cash recovered in searches or from bank accounts in Yerardi’s name, as well as 30 fake luxury watches also recovered in searches, and a forfeiture money judgment order against Yerardi for $300,000.

In December 2016, Yerardi pleaded guilty to conducting an illegal gambling business, conspiring to make and making extortionate extensions of credit, and conspiring to collect and collecting extensions of credit by extortionate means.

Yerardi was the head of a large bookmaking business that made hundreds of thousands of dollars and used threats or other extortionate means to collect debts. Among other things, a debtor reported that Yerardi threatened to stab the debtor “twenty times” for not paying a gambling debt.

In 2009, Yerardi was convicted in federal court in Boston of racketeering, conducting an illegal gambling business, money laundering, and collection of credit by extortionate means, and sentenced to 100 months in prison. In 1995, Yerardi was convicted in federal court in Boston of racketeering, extortionate extensions of credit, collection of credit by extortionate means, money laundering, conducting an illegal gambling business and witness intimidation, and sentenced to 135 months in prison.

Acting United States Attorney William D. Weinreb; Harold H. Shaw, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Field Division; and Colonel Richard D. McKeon, Superintendent of the Massachusetts State Police, made the announcement today. The Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigations in Boston, the Massachusetts Department of Correction, and the Boston, Cambridge, Medford, and Quincy Police Departments assisted with the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy E. Moran of Weinreb’s Organized Crime and Gang Unit prosecuted the case.