Is WPB In Bed With The Mob?
May 20, 2021
2/1/2016 Below is a story about the ground breaking of the Banyan Cay Resort with Former Mayor Muoio and Domenic Gatto. Five years ago I am going to assume the City was unaware of Mr. Gatto’s reputation. Five years later the City should be well aware of who Mr. Gatto is thanks to the PB Post and the Florida Bulldog.
https://www.nicklaus.com/2016/12/01/jack-nicklaus-breaks-ground-banyan-cay-resort-golf/
4/28/2021 (PB Post) “Domenic Gatto is the developer behind the $100 million Banyan Cay complex just east of Interstate 95, off Congress Avenue and north of Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard, near the Palm Beach Outlets shopping mall. When complete, Banyan Cay will be the largest redevelopment in West Palm Beach since Rosemary Square, formerly known as CityPlace, the popular downtown mixed-use dining and shopping center.
Domenic Gatto, a 46-year old Palm Beach Gardens resident, is one of five men charged in what the U.S. Department of Justice described as a $65 million “nationwide kickback and bribery scheme” to order medically unnecessary orthotic braces for Medicare beneficiaries.
The 250-acre Banyan Cay property used to be the site of the President Country Club, but the club fell into financial trouble and was sold to an investor group for $11 million in 2011. That investor group then flipped the property to Banyan Cay Dev LLC, led by Gatto, for $26 million in 2015.”
5/4/2021 (Florida Bulldog) “Elderly South Florida mobster Thomas Farese at the top of $93 million healthcare fraud, feds say
Joining Farese as a defendant in the case is old pal, Colombo family associate Pat Truglia, 53, of Parkland. Both men, along with Domenic J. Gatto, 46, of Palm Beach Gardens, and Nicholas Defonte, 72, and Christopher Cirri, 63, both of Toms River, N.J., are charged with conspiracy to commit health care fraud between October 2017 and April 2019
Gatto and Defonte posted bonds of $700,000 each and were released. Cirri posted a $500,00 bond. The status of Farese and Truglia is not public. Oddly, because the charges against them are public, their cases remain sealed.”
12/5/2019 “Money laundering is an after-the-fact crime. Only after drugs are sold, extortions settled, cons completed and frauds finished, does money need to be cleaned.
Laundering, the near-invisible financial fiddling to make the money from crime look respectable so it can be openly used, is an essential element of the cycle that keeps mobsters and transnational crime bosses in business.”
https://nationalpost.com/news/the-underworld-laundromat-how-to-clean-10-million-in-mob-money
I find it suspicious and can’t understand why “staff” who recommended approval of the Banyan Cay Resort didn’t do a background check on the developers.
Heads up Commissioners, your not asking the right questions.
The end!