Washington: Illegal gambling business nets two years in prison

Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2000 | 5:14 a.m.

U.S. District Judge Fremming Nielsen last Thursday sentenced Nicholas "Mike" Mitola, who pleaded guilty in June to operating an illegal gambling business.

Authorities say Mitola, 53, set up a bookmaking operation in 1999 inside Cascade Espresso, a locked stand that never sold a cup of coffee. The fake coffee business processed at least $100,000 a week in bets from 360 active bettors who were given secret code names to call in bets, officials said.

Their voices and bets were recorded on audiotapes seized by FBI agents and state gambling investigators. Mitola was indicted by a federal grand jury in April.

Seven clerks who worked for Mitola also have pleaded guilty. One was sentenced to 30 days in jail, while the others are expected to be sentenced this month.

Mitola is a former East Coast mobster who avoided prison and became a federal witness in the federal prosecution of the Lucchese organized crime family in New Jersey in 1989.

He moved to Spokane under the federal witness protection program in the early 1990s, adopting the name Mike Milano.

In 1991, he pleaded guilty in Spokane County Superior Court to involuntary manslaughter after confessing to killing a man in a cocaine deal that went astray. He served a three-year prison term on that count.

The investigation of the bookmaking operation, called the largest in Spokane history, was conducted by the Washington State Gambling Commission and the FBI.