Stefano given 5 years in outcall takeover case

A New Yorker, who sent two reputed hitmen to Las Vegas as part of an outcall service takeover attempt in 1998, was sentenced to slightly more than five years in federal prison on Tuesday for interfering with commerce.

U.S. District Judge Philip Pro also gave Mario Stefano 10 months in prison for violating his parole in a Philadelphia money-laundering case. The 65-year-old Stefano must serve the 10-month sentence after the five-year, three-month sentence.

According to court testimony, Stefano was sentenced to almost four years in prison in 1993 in connection with a $100 million wire fraud case in Philadelphia. He was released from prison and placed on supervised release in June 1996.

However, two years later, Stefano violated his probation by getting involved in a scheme to get rid of Las Vegas resident Anthony Nastasi's competition.

Nastasi owned an outcall service business -- in which exotic dancers are sent to clients' homes or hotel rooms -- and Stefano offered to send "a couple of aspirins" to Las Vegas to get rid of Nastasi's headaches.

One of the men he sent, Vinnie Congiusti, has a reputation of having drilled holes in victims' heads, earning him the nickname "Vinnie Aspirin.'

Stefano didn't know that Nastasi was working with the FBI in its investigation of Christiano DeCarlo, another outcall service business owner, and many of his conversations were being recorded.

Stefano, DeCarlo, 27, Congiusti, 49, and three other men, Anton Nelsen, Kenneth Byrnes, 38, and Joshua Snellings, 20, were arrested Oct. 9, 1998, and charged in the plot.

All of the men ultimately entered plea agreements, admitting only that they attempted to coerce Nastasi's competition. DeCarlo received 4 1/2 years in prison, Byrnes and Nelsen got three years and four months, and Snellings received 319 days. Congiusti is scheduled to be sentenced March 24.

On Tuesday Stefano's attorney John Ham asked Pro to give Stefano a sentence on the low end of the possible range, saying that much of the case was simply "tough talk and puffery."

The group acted like the Keystone Kops and the government blew the case out of proportion, Ham said.

Stefano told Pro he would appreciate anything the judge could do for him.

"I'm sorry for all of the problems I seem to have caused over here. It was never my intention to hurt anyone," Stefano said.

Pro told Stefano he played a key role in the plot. "You are stuck with the words you uttered."

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