Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Newhouse said debtors threatened by Calvanese would rather go to prison than testify against him.
State, local and federal law enforcement agencies will divide $768,000 seized from a Springfield loanshark under an agreement announced Thursday by U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz.
The money was seized during a multi-agency investigation of Albert B. Calvanese, 48, of Springfield, who pleaded guilty to two loansharking counts in U.S. District Court in Boston in December 2007.
U.S. District Judge Patti B. Saris ordered him to serve 63 months in prison and forfeit $132,000. In a related civil case, Calvanese was ordered to surrender an additional $636,308 from his loansharking business.
While the case was based on the extortion of a Wilbraham businessman, Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd E. Newhouse said in court the defendant was an especially feared figure in the loansharking business, and state and federal investigators struggled for years to build a case against him.
In a successful bid to keep Calvanese from being released on bail following his November 2006 arrest, Newhouse played an audio tape that purportedly captured the sounds of Calvanese punching former mortgage broker Mark L. McCarthy, of Wilbraham, a government witness who owed $20,000 in gambling debts.
While in custody, Calvanese made threats against McCarthy in recorded calls from a prison phone, according to Newhouse, who said other loan-sharking victims insisted they would rather go to prison than testify against him.
Investigators from the Springfield FBI office, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Massachusetts State Police Special Services Section and the Springfield Police Department worked on the case.
Ortiz congratulated the agencies for shutting down one of the area’s largest loansharking operations, and said the proceeds will be used to build new cases against organized crime across the state.
The money will be distributed to the Hampden District Attorney’s office, which will get $127,262; Berkshire District Attorney, $127,261; the FBI, $153,196; the Massachusetts State Police, $51,870; the Springfield Police Department, $76,598; and the Internal Revenue Service, $232,119.