New Jersey Accuses Mob-Led Ring of Running Illegal Sports Gambling

New York|New Jersey Accuses Mob-Led Ring of Running Illegal Sports Gambling

New Jersey law enforcement officials on Thursday accused a man they said was a Mafia member of directing a multimillion-dollar criminal sports betting ring that involved student athletes running their own illegal electronic sports books.

Authorities said that Joseph M. (Little Joe) Perna, who they said was part of the Lucchese crime family, financed the operation, which they said had support from several relatives, including his son, Joseph R. Perna. In all, law enforcement authorities arrested and charged 14 people in the case.

The defendants are charged with racketeering, conspiracy, gambling offenses and money laundering. Mr. Perna’s wife and ex-wife are also among the defendants.

The charges came after recent indictments announced by the federal prosecutor’s office in Brooklyn brought new scrutiny to both legal and illegal gambling and how it has affected professional and amateur sports in the United States.

One of those cases involved the systematic rigging of poker games in New York City that were run by the mob and attended by former N.B.A. athletes, who took a cut of the illegal proceeds, according to federal prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York.

The New Jersey attorney general, Matthew J. Platkin, said at a news conference that the operation had taken place despite the fact that sports gambling was legal in the state.

“Organized crime families seem to have a hard time breaking this old habit, so we’re going to break it for them,” he said.

He said that the operation used offshore gambling websites, enticing people to place bets that represented about $2 million in illegal transactions. It relied, he said, on younger gamblers who were recruited from among the junior Mr. Perna’s high school and college friends.

In New Jersey, the charges against illegal gambling are particularly resonant. A state law led to a landmark Supreme Court decision in 2018 that paved the way for the widespread legalization of sports betting across America.

But while sports gambling companies have argued that legalizing the activity brought it out of the underworld and allowed for its regulation, critics have countered that legal wagers often lead to illegal ones, and that the surfeit of opportunities for betting has expanded the possibilities for corruption — even among athletes.

Mr. Platkin asked that any college student listening note that, while they could gamble on their phones if they were of age in New Jersey, “You should not be gambling in a mob-backed operation. That’s free parental advice.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.