A reputed former mob “debt collector/enforcer” from Maine was sentenced to just over three years in prison Tuesday for his role in a violent 2018 robbery in Massachusetts, according to prosecutors.
William “Billy” Angelesco, 49, of Saco – who was acquitted in a notorious 2001 nightclub murder in Revere, Massachusetts – received a 37-month sentence for the robbery, plus three years of supervised release, during a hearing in U.S. District Court in Boston, according to U.S. Attorney Andrew E. Lelling’s office.
Angelesco has been held since his November arrest at his home in Saco.
Prosecutors, in a recent sentencing memo, had requested the 37-month prison term for Angelesco, whom they said is known by law enforcement to have been “a debt collector/enforcer for the New England LCN for many years.”
The abbreviation LCN stands for La Cosa Nostra, an alternate name for the mob. The crime at issue occurred in September 2018, prosecutors wrote. That’s when Angelesco and two other men robbed the victim, a recovering heroin addict, at his apartment in Abington, Massachusetts, prosecutors wrote. The other two assailants haven’t been apprehended.
Prosecutors said Angelesco and his co-conspirators were loading items into duffel bags and tote boxes inside the victim’s apartment when he suddenly entered the residence. Then it got ugly.
“The victim was punched repeatedly and the suspects screamed, ‘where’s the cash, where’s the cash?’ During the struggle, the victim’s fingers were injured,” the government wrote, adding that the trio made off with “several pairs of limited edition sneakers, three to four pounds of marijuana, 200 vape THC cartridges, edibles, and $1,000 in cash from either the marijuana or sneaker business.”
Angelesco avoided a life sentence in 2005, when a Suffolk Superior Court jury cleared him of murdering 47-year-old Peter J. DeVito, who was shot at close range inside the entrance of the crowded Squire Lounge in Revere on Dec. 8, 2001.
“Angelesco’s role in the [2018 Abington] offense was significant,” prosecutors wrote. ” … He has previously been arrested for extortion and served time in state prison. It is therefore likely that Angelesco was the mastermind and supervisor of this plan to rob the victim’s home. He also is likely the individual, according to the victim, who caused his injuries – injuries for which he is still dealing to this day.”
In a separate sentencing memo, Angelesco’s lawyer, Carmine P. Lepore, had asked that his client be sentenced to 27 months behind bars, followed by two years of supervised release.
Angelesco, Lepore wrote, is a married father of two and, though he’s no stranger to the criminal justice system, had “remained sober and out of trouble since 2007″ before relapsing in January 2018.
“He has been diagnosed with cocaine use disorder, opioid use disorder anxiety and depression,” Lepore wrote. “As a result of his addiction the defendant has overdosed three times, the most recent being in August of 2019.”
Despite Angelesco’s struggles, Lepore wrote, he started and ran a successful clothing boutique and consignment store in Peabody.
“Although drug use and addiction do not serve as a pass for criminality, it lends some insight into a clearer picture of the defendant and his past as well as the circumstances that lead to this matter,” Lepore wrote.
Angelesco’s wife, Kristan Angelesco, also submitted a six-page, handwritten letter to Judge Nathaniel M. Gorton, who will sentence her spouse, requesting leniency and asserting her husband has tried to impart positive life lessons to their two sons.
“He teaches his boys not to make bad decisions and not to make the mistakes he has made,” she wrote. “He tells them real men go to work everyday.”
Addressing Gorton directly, Kristan Angelesco wrote, “Your Honor, they say you are a tough Judge but also say you are a fair Judge. Please your honor I’m begging you for me and my two sons to give my husband the least amount of time possible so he can come home to be the father and husband he needs to be.”
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