masterp74
07-16-2004, 01:34 PM
Sex and gambling linked in novel online racket
Friday, July 16, 2004
By LAURA FASBACH
STAFF WRITER
Sex or cash? Investigators say gamblers in four states could choose either form of payment when they placed winning bets with online bookie Salvatore Teodoro.
Police nabbed the Elmwood Park man and seized computers and records at his Legion Place home late Wednesday after a five-month investigation uncovered a gambling and prostitution ring, Police Chief Don Ingrasselino said.
Teodoro employed prostitutes to deliver the cash winnings to customers from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, the chief said.
The prostitutes - two of whom were under 18 - offered the clients a choice: all of the money or varying levels of sex and cash.
"It brought up his profit margins a bit," Ingrasselino said of Teodoro, whom he described as the operation's ringleader. The chief did not know how much money the operation handled.
Police said Thursday that the investigation was continuing, and that more arrests were pending.
Investigators said they got their break in the case Wednesday, when Teodoro acted on suspicions that an acquaintance was a police informant. Teodoro lured the man, who was indeed working with police, to his home, where he tied up the informant with ropes and duct tape in an attempt to intimidate him, Ingrasselino said.
"He threatened to shoot him with a gun and break his legs with a bat," the chief said. "He wanted this guy to believe he was going to kill him."
After a couple of hours Teodoro released the informant, who made a beeline to the police.
"He's lucky he wasn't killed," Ingrasselino said. Teodoro "pretty much tortured him."
Ingrasselino said Teodoro had been running the bets-for-sex operation from his home for at least the past five months, with gamblers placing bets on sports teams through a Web site that he managed. Ingrasselino said the prostitution services were advertised by word of mouth.
The chief said his detectives began their investigation after the department's narcotics enforcement unit received a tip during an unrelated case.
Teodoro was charged Thursday with kidnapping, tampering with an informant by force, making terroristic threats, possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose, promoting gambling, possession of gambling records, promoting prostitution, and promoting juveniles in prostitution.
Teordoro served nine months in the Passaic County Jail on a 2001 theft conviction.
In 1995, he pleaded guilty to defrauding the state's now-defunct Joint Underwriting Association, an insurance organization. Teodoro, a former owner of an auto insurance appraisal company, was sentenced to a year in jail and three years' probation and ordered to pay the state $34,200 in restitution and a $34,000 fine.
He was arraigned in Superior Court in Hackensack on Thursday and was sent to Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus for psychiatric evaluation.
E-mail: fasbach@northjersey.com
Friday, July 16, 2004
By LAURA FASBACH
STAFF WRITER
Sex or cash? Investigators say gamblers in four states could choose either form of payment when they placed winning bets with online bookie Salvatore Teodoro.
Police nabbed the Elmwood Park man and seized computers and records at his Legion Place home late Wednesday after a five-month investigation uncovered a gambling and prostitution ring, Police Chief Don Ingrasselino said.
Teodoro employed prostitutes to deliver the cash winnings to customers from New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania, the chief said.
The prostitutes - two of whom were under 18 - offered the clients a choice: all of the money or varying levels of sex and cash.
"It brought up his profit margins a bit," Ingrasselino said of Teodoro, whom he described as the operation's ringleader. The chief did not know how much money the operation handled.
Police said Thursday that the investigation was continuing, and that more arrests were pending.
Investigators said they got their break in the case Wednesday, when Teodoro acted on suspicions that an acquaintance was a police informant. Teodoro lured the man, who was indeed working with police, to his home, where he tied up the informant with ropes and duct tape in an attempt to intimidate him, Ingrasselino said.
"He threatened to shoot him with a gun and break his legs with a bat," the chief said. "He wanted this guy to believe he was going to kill him."
After a couple of hours Teodoro released the informant, who made a beeline to the police.
"He's lucky he wasn't killed," Ingrasselino said. Teodoro "pretty much tortured him."
Ingrasselino said Teodoro had been running the bets-for-sex operation from his home for at least the past five months, with gamblers placing bets on sports teams through a Web site that he managed. Ingrasselino said the prostitution services were advertised by word of mouth.
The chief said his detectives began their investigation after the department's narcotics enforcement unit received a tip during an unrelated case.
Teodoro was charged Thursday with kidnapping, tampering with an informant by force, making terroristic threats, possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose, promoting gambling, possession of gambling records, promoting prostitution, and promoting juveniles in prostitution.
Teordoro served nine months in the Passaic County Jail on a 2001 theft conviction.
In 1995, he pleaded guilty to defrauding the state's now-defunct Joint Underwriting Association, an insurance organization. Teodoro, a former owner of an auto insurance appraisal company, was sentenced to a year in jail and three years' probation and ordered to pay the state $34,200 in restitution and a $34,000 fine.
He was arraigned in Superior Court in Hackensack on Thursday and was sent to Bergen Regional Medical Center in Paramus for psychiatric evaluation.
E-mail: fasbach@northjersey.com