News 12 New Jersey reported that eight more people tied to the Lucchese crime family, along with three companies, pleaded guilty this week to running a racketeering, illegal gambling, and money laundering operation built in part on underground poker clubs across northern New Jersey. The pleas are the latest development in a sprawling two-year investigation that has now resulted in 35 guilty pleas from 42 people originally indicted.
New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport announced the pleas, which were entered before Superior Court Judge Ralph E. Amirata in Morris County. “The guilty pleas we accepted today represent another important step in dismantling this criminal enterprise and holding the individuals involved accountable,” Davenport said. “Organized crime has no place in New Jersey.”
What the operation looked like
This wasn’t framed by prosecutors as a poker case that happened to have other stuff attached. It was a two-track criminal enterprise, and live poker was one of the tracks. Social clubs in towns like Totowa, Garfield, and Woodland Park hosted live poker games and gambling machines, with two of the rooms reportedly hidden behind functioning restaurants. The other track was an online sportsbook run through offshore websites, organized in the classic agent-and-sub-agent structure, with a cut of the action flowing up the chain to higher-level managers.
Poker club managers handled the day-to-day, collecting payments from hosts, supervising employees, and keeping the games running. According to the Attorney General’s Office, investigators identified roughly $4.79 million in suspected criminal proceeds tied to the enterprise, much of it allegedly laundered through legitimate-looking New Jersey businesses.
Who pleaded guilty
Three defendants described by prosecutors as high-level managers and alleged Lucchese family members, George Zappola, Joseph R. Perna, and John G. Perna, each pleaded guilty to second-degree racketeering with a recommended seven-year state prison sentence. Zappola is reportedly a senior figure within the Lucchese organization with a history dating back decades, including a 1996 guilty plea on multiple murder charges.
The rest of the pleas broke down by role:
- Wayne D. Cross, a Lucchese associate, pleaded guilty to third-degree promoting gambling (five years recommended)
- Michael P. Frasso, 48, of Cedar Grove, a sportsbook agent, pleaded guilty to second-degree racketeering, failure to pay income tax, and corporate misconduct (15 years recommended in aggregate)
- Frank Imparato, 46, of Saddle Brook, a poker club manager, pleaded guilty to third-degree conspiracy (four years recommended)
- Joseph Gossweiler, 41, of Florham Park, a sportsbook sub-agent and poker club manager, pleaded guilty to third-degree conspiracy to promote gambling (364 days probation recommended)
- Peter Norcia, 50, of Toms River, a sportsbook agent, pleaded guilty to third-degree conspiracy to promote gambling (four years recommended)
Three corporations also entered guilty pleas. Café Gio, allegedly used by Imparato to facilitate the illegal gambling, pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy. Frasso Trucking and CJW Development and Consulting each pleaded guilty to second-degree conspiracy to commit anti-money-laundering profiteering. All three agreed to $250,000 penalties.
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Why this matters beyond one bust
The case traces back to April 2025, when raids hit a dozen locations across northern New Jersey, including those four poker clubs and a Paterson site used to store gambling machines. One of the higher-profile arrests at the time was Anand Shah, a Prospect Park councilman accused of managing poker games and sportsbook operations within the enterprise. Seven defendants still have charges pending, and the investigation remains open.
For poker players, the real takeaway isn’t the mob angle; it’s the reminder of how underground cardrooms actually function in places like New Jersey. These weren’t standalone home games. They were structured, professionally run operations layered into a larger criminal enterprise, with managers, hosts, and a cut moving up the chain just like any other organized business. That’s a very different risk profile than a friendly game at someone’s kitchen table, and it’s worth knowing the difference before sitting down in a room you don’t know much about.
