An associate of Danbury, Conn., trash hauler James Galante was handed a 30-month prison sentence Aug. 10 after pleading guilty in March to one count of conspiring to violate the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO).
Ciro Viento, 44, of Mahopac, an operations manager at Galante”™s Automated Waste Disposal Inc. in Danbury, was also ordered to forfeit $20,000 and was fined $6,000 for his role in perpetuating a mob-enforced system that let participating carters artificially inflate their prices for commercial and municipal customers in western Connecticut and eastern New York state.
Federal prosecutors said court-authorized wiretaps recorded Viento several times enforcing the system, threatening and bullying carters who bucked the system and locking them out of transfer stations in Connecticut and New York, and sabotaging at least one carter who rebelled by falsely reporting to the carter”™s customer that rats infested the carter”™s dumpsters.
Viento is one of 33 individuals and 10 businesses indicted on various racketeering, wire fraud, extortion and other charges in connection with a long-term federal investigation into Galante”™s waste-hauling businesses. So far, 21 individuals named in a June 2006 indictment have pleaded guilty to various violations of federal law. A superseding indictment in June omitted the 21 and charged eight people with federal law violations ”“ including Galante, 54, who is now charged with 93 counts, including racketeering, extortion, wire and mail fraud, witness tampering and conspiracy.
Galante is under house arrest at his New Fairfield, Conn., home.
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