Carmine Agnello Jr., the grandson of late mob boss John Gotti and son of Victoria Gotti, was sentenced on Monday, April 20, to 15 months in federal prison after admitting he fraudulently obtained more than $1 million in COVID-era business relief funds.
According to the Department of Justice, U.S. District Judge Nusrat Choudhury handed down the sentence in Central Islip, Long Island, NY, where Agnello was also ordered to pay $1,268,302 in restitution, complete 100 hours of community service, and serve two years of supervised release after his prison term.
Agnello pleaded guilty in September 2024 to wire fraud connected to three Economic Injury Disaster Loans awarded during the pandemic.
In recent weeks, Agnello had asked the court for leniency based on his plans to donate a kidney to his mother. Victoria Gotti, who recently revealed she is battling chronic kidney disease, submitted an emotional letter to the judge describing her eldest son as her “Miracle Child” and arguing that he was preparing to give her “the gift of life.”
Federal prosecutors pushed back, arguing that the planned transplant should not outweigh the seriousness of the crime. Earlier this month, prosecutors sought a sentence of between 33 and 41 months, maintaining that Agnello knowingly misused government funds intended for struggling businesses during the height of the pandemic.
In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella Jr. said Agnello “shamefully lined his own pockets with government and taxpayers’ dollars” during a national crisis.
According to court records, Agnello applied for at least three disaster-relief loans between 2020 and 2021 on behalf of Crown Auto Parts & Recycling, a Queens-based business he operated.
Prosecutors said he inflated the company’s payroll numbers and falsely described how the money would be used. Instead of putting the funds back into the business, authorities said Agnello diverted roughly $420,000 into a cryptocurrency venture.
Agnello first became known to the public as a child on A&E’s Growing Up Gotti, which followed Victoria Gotti and her three sons. In sentencing papers, his attorney argued that he had spent much of his life under public scrutiny because of his family name and reality-TV fame.
