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Newton man going back to prison on racketeering charges
By adamg on Fri, 03/17/2017 - 9:15pm
Joseph Yerardi, 62, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison today for his role in running a gambling and extortion ring in the Boston area, the US Attorney's office in Boston reports.
Yerardi, a former associate of Whitey Bulger, now has three racketeering convictions on his record since 1995 - and has already spent 17 years in federal prison. He pleaded guilty to the latest charges in December.
According to the US Attorney's office:
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.
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Comments
Random Observations
* Seems like Joseph Yerardi has 'made the news', in a negative way, my whole life
* Good digging Adam. Didn't see this story in the Globe.
* Why does the State's Attorney General pass on this and many other criminal cases?
* At age 62, Mr. Yerardi may be regretting the career choice he made 40 years ago.
Thanks, but ...
No real digging (except to search the earlier articles I'd written) - the US Attorney's office issued a press release (same basic idea with the dick doc, except in that case it was the state AG's office with the press release). Press releases issued on Fridays sometimes get missed in the weekend rush to get out of the office, I guess :-).
As for why some cases go state and others federal, that's a good question, one I've thought about sometimes with the periodic big drug-ring busts (which seem to be split between the DA and the feds).
If I had to guess, in this case I'd think it's because of the feds' long-time effort to go after what they love to call the LCN (you may recall how Whitey Bulger got his carte blanche as part of an effort to take down the local Mafia). Plus, they have a long history with this guy.
Divia ....
.... mush.
Yerardi, mansion fire,134 chestnut hill rd
when I was a kid my friends and I used to go to the movies a the chestnut hill mall quite a bit. We used to cut through a private road that had many beautiful mansions and properties. My favorite was a giant house made of some type of stone with a gorgeous slate roof. My friends and I used to imagine that Larry Bird may have been living in any one of them that had a basketball hoop. Years after this I worked at Boston College and one morning I saw a large amount of smoke coming from the chestnut hill rd direction. When I tried to drive in the private road was blocked off. the next day I drove in to discover my favorite house with the slate roof was burned to the ground. Nothing but a pile of ashes. I found out later this house belonged to joseph yerardi and his wife jennifer. not sure how the fire started.