A Hartsdale businessman will be imprisoned for six months for scheming for 12 years to steal $272,559 in Social Security disability payments ostensibly meant for his father.
U.S. District Judge Kenneth M. Karas also sentenced Domenick Ciccone, 37, to two years of supervision after release from prison and ordered him to pay $545,188 for forfeiture of ill-gotten gains and restitution to the Social Security Administration. The judgment was imposed on Nov. 24 in White Plains federal court and recorded on Dec. 8.
For 12 years, according to court records, Ciccone received monthly disability payments in the name of his father, who had died of bladder cancer in 2012. Even after Social Security stopped the disability payments in 2021, Ciccone posed as his father and wrote emotionally charged pleas to get the agency to resume payments.
Ciccone pleaded guilty to wire fraud on June 4, and according to a plea deal he could have been imprisoned for up to 27 months. The federal probation and parole office recommendation six months.
Defense attorney Anthony DiPietro recommended a “nominal term,” in a letter to U.S. District Judge Nelson S. Román, who handled the case until it was reassigned to judge Karas.
DiPietro argued that Ciccone suffered a tumultuous childhood with abusive parents and a stepfather in the Bronx. He dropped out of school in the ninth grade. Yet, “he built a loving family, established a lawful business, and has consistently sought to contribute as a productive and responsible member of his community.”
He built a tile business with “only his hard work and grit,” the sentencing letter states.
Ciccone worries about the financial strain of imprisonment on his family and business. “With my tile business already in financial disarray,” he stated in a letter to the court, “my absence will force me to shut it down entirely. I’ve worked so hard to build my business and provide for my family, and it hurts deeply to think about losing everything I’ve worked for and the hardship it will bring them.”
Ciccone did not identify his business but the circumstances describe Exquisite Tile & Design Corp., on Central Park Avenue in Hartsdale.
Assistant prosecutor Carmi Schickler recommended at least 21 months in prison, in a letter to judge Román.
Ciccone’s crime was not a momentary lapse or a simple act of theft, he said, but rather a calculated fraud that required planning, deception and sustained effort. When the Social Security Administration stopped the monthly disability payments in 2021, Ciccone submitted false documents to make sure that the government would “turn the faucet on again.”
He claimed he had bone cancer, and he spends his time with family “for as much time I have left on this earth.” He wrote in another report that he had no more hair, he has stabbing pains in his legs and back, and “I do pray the lord takes me.”
The Social Security Administration resumed the monthly disability payments until earlier this year, when it identified the fraud.
Judge Karas ordered Ciccone to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on March 31, 2026.
