Local man admits to illegal gaming

SALEM – William “Billy” Angelesco, the Chelsea man who beat a Revere murder rap in 2005, admitted to illegal gaming charges and received two and one-half years in jail in Superior Court Friday.Angelesco, 36, avoided a trial and pleaded guilty to organizing and promoting a gambling operation, use of a telephone for gambling purposes and conspiracy.He was sentenced to serve two-and-one-half years in the House of Corrections by Salem Superior Court Judge Howard J. Whitehead.Assistant Attorney General Michael J. Callanan told Whitehead that the charges stem from an ongoing investigation into illegal gambling in 2001 on the North Shore.The investigation focused on his gambling association with Joseph Settipane, of Saugus, who was in his 70s when he died in 2002.Authorities used wiretap interceptions in which Angelesco placed sporting bets on diverse dates between Oct. 18, 2001 and Dec. 31, 2001.He supervised 10 agents, as a middle manager for the Saugus-based bookmaking ring, and gave them commissions for their sales.When Angelesco, who has addresses in Revere, Somerville and Chelsea, was in the hospital for an unspecified medical problem, the agents answered phones and took bets for him, Callanan said.Police reports indicate they seized $800,000 during their investigation from the ring.Callanan could not provide an address in Saugus where the operation ran out of nor where Angelesco had his address in Revere at the time.Angelesco was arrested at his Cottage Street home in Chelsea by state troopers Nunzio Orlando and Pasquale Russolillo of the Special Service section after an Essex County grand jury handed up the three indictments against him on Feb. 22, 2006.He was arraigned the next day in Superior Court and was released on bail, but the bail was revoked and he has been held in custody after he failed to appear for a hearing two months later.Angelesco, who grew up in Medford, was acquitted by a Suffolk County jury of the 2001 execution-style slaying of Peter J. DeVito, who managed the Squire Lounge, a strip club in Revere.DeVito, 47, of Nahant, was shot three times, including one shot in the head in the entrance way of the crowded night club on Dec. 8, 2001.During the trial, prosecutors maintained that the shooting was in retaliation from an earlier episode when Angelesco apparently was beaten at a Providence strip club which DeVito also managed.Callanan felt a prison term, rather than a jail sentence of three years was more appropriate based on Angelesco’s prior violent criminal history dating back to 1990.Defense lawyer Camine P. Lepore asked for significantly lesser time.As part of the plea negotiations, the sentence imposed will run together with a 5-to-7-year state prison term Angelesco is now serving out of Middlesex County for extortion involving gambling charges out of the greater Boston area, Callanan said.The judge credited Angelesco the 645 days he has been held in custody awaiting trial on the case.