Former Mafia informant accused in gambling ring

Thursday, April 6, 2000 | 3:28 a.m.

Nicholas P. Mitola Jr. was arrested Monday and booked into the Spokane County Jail. He was being held Thursday pending an April 13 arraignment in U.S. District Court on charges of operating an illegal gambling business.

Court documents filed Wednesday accuse Mitola, 52, of running a bookmaking operation out of the espresso stand that was always locked and apparently never sold a latte.

FBI and Washington State Gambling Commission agents last month served search warrants at the espresso stand and Mitola's South Hill home, seizing records, computers and banks of telephones allegedly used by the gambling operation.

Search warrants also were served at a popular downtown Spokane sports bar and the apartment of an alleged bookie.

The court documents allege the bookmaking operation had as many as 360 active bettors and employed 15 bookies who took in $100,000 a week on bets on a variety of sporting events.

Investigators will try to determine whether the bookmaking ring has ties to organized crime in other cities. Phone records seized under search warrants show bookmakers placed calls to New Jersey, California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho and Montana.

The ongoing investigation was helped last month when Mitola's girlfriend gave the FBI computer disks, audio tapes, computer spreadsheets and betting slips, the court documents indicate.

The 43-year-old woman apparently was angry at Mitola after an incidence of domestic violence March 7 in which he allegedly damaged her apartment.

The woman obtained a court order prohibiting Mitola from contacting her.

Mitola is the only person charged so far, but other arrests are likely, Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom Rice said.

Spokane authorities are familiar with Mitola, who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in the slaying of an Iranian immigrant in February 1991, after Mitola had moved to the city under the federal witness protection program.

Mitola spent about three years in prison on the manslaughter charge, but moved back to Spokane after his sentence ended.

Mitola was placed in the witness protection program, with a new identity as Michael Milano, after he testified against 20 members of the Lucchese family in New Jersey in the late 1980s.

It was the longest federal criminal trial in U.S. history, but federal prosecutors lost the case.