By LARRY MCSHANE
That’s the way the ping-pong ball bounces.
One-time Colombo crime family street boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli’s $250,000 settlement for a table tennis tumble while behind bars should go for restitution to a fur store and a bank robbed by the gangster and his crew back in the ’90s, a Brooklyn
“In this case, once defendant’s settlement is finalized, he will have immediate access to (the money),” wrote Judge Brian M. Cogan last week in his ruling against the notorious Gioeli. “... His financial circumstances have seismically shifted, and he now has the financial means to make immediate court-ordered restitution.”
Gioeli is on the hook for a $360,000 payback to a Chemical Bank branch and a business called Furs by Mina, with Cogan ruling that Gioeli “personally profited from these robberies ... (he) was the undisputed leader of the pack (and) ... the other perpetrators were his direct subordinates within the Mafia hierarchy, acting pursuant to his orders.”
According to court papers, the settlement money is currently sitting in an interest-bearing account under the supervision of Federal Court Judge Kiyo Matsumoto.
Gioeli’s lawyer Jennifer Louis-Jeune asked for a extended deadline of Dec. 20 to respond to Cogan’s decision ordering the defendant to show cause why the new money should not accelerate the 67-year-old mobster’s payback process.
Goeli is less than halfway through an 18 1/2-year prison sentence following his racketeering conviction. The restitution was part of his sentence, with the initial payback set at $25 every three months while in custody and 10% of his gross monthly weekend while on supervised release.
But in August 2013, the ping-pong playing inmate skidded in a puddle near the showers inside the Manhattan Detention Center, with Gioeli’s slip-and-fall leaving him with a broken kneecap and a 30-day hospital stay.
He sued the federal Bureau of Prisons for $10 million, eventually agreeing to a quarter-million dollar settlement.
The fur business robbery in 1992 netted 150 fur coats worth an estimated $900,000, while the 1995 bank heist netted roughly $210,000, according to court documents. Goeli, a tough guy described by racketeering trial witnesses as a cold-blooded assassin, was ordered to pay the full amount to Chemical Bank and $150,000 to Furs by Mina.
As of two months ago, Tommy Shots had ponied up just $450 in restitution — leaving an outstanding balance of $359,550.