Gambling Ring Busted!

A South Jersey gambling operation allegedly headed up by retired bodybuilding handicapper Carmine "Big Nicky" Devita was taken out by authorities late yesterday. Devita, 60, had drawn considerable attention to himself by organizing a rally that planned to use the Shawn Ray Pro-Am Classic to bolster dissent against the IFBB and the Master's World Championship win of fmr. Mr. USA Bob Cicherillo.

In a statement read out by Devita's attorney Nick Alicante, Devita says he was framed and accuses friends of the Stanley's as having been the ones that blew the whistle on his operations. The fact that Devita posted on his own accounts and throughout dozens of submitted articles that he's a successful bodybuilding handicapper seems to have not made it to the prepared statement. Others arrested included Santos Dessanti, Louis Stevens Jr., and Devita's driver and alleged enforcer, Marcelo Barrios of South Orange, NJ.

Santos Dessanti, 63, also a Devita associate was charged with multiple illegal gambling charges in addition to the possession-with-intent-to-distribute of anabolic steroids. While Devita's bail was set at $250,000 and his alleged co-conspirators' bail were set between $100,000 - $150,000, Dessanti whom has the most charges respectively was released on $10,000 bail. On early morning Tuesday (4/25/06) Santos Dessanti, with a mutual friend of his and Devita's, was seen sipping coffee and arguing over his morning sports page in front of Lino's Barbershop where he's sat in front of every morning for the last twenty-seven years.

Devita's co-counsel Charles Lester had this to say: "Santos Dessanti is a friend of Carmine Devita's, we only hope he remembers that." When asked if Dessanti had taken the heat on the steroids hit for Devita, Mr. Lester had this to say: "my client knows nothing about sportbooks or anabolic steroids, he is a retired carpenter's union official and a bodybuilding fan...that is all."

But Masters bodybuilding fans in the South Jersey are know better. Darnell Johnson, 47, whose apparently posting messages from Devita on bodybuilding.com and has gone so far as to say that I don't love the sport anymore, even admits that Devita denying gambling connections will be hard to prove in court. I'll say Darnell! The skinny on the gambling charges is that Carmine Devita not only takes bets, but he's the guy that made the spread in Jersey. In 2001 it's suspected Devita took over $140,000 in cash for bets on that year's Olympia! There's no question how much money was taken w/o cash upfront and how many folks are indebted today. Steve Marchenko, a guy that was once being groomed to be Devita's Newark partner, said "Carmine & Marcelo [Barrios] were collecting as high as sixty points a day and I just couldn't be a part of that," in an October 2005 interview with this e-zine. From Oct. '05 until the present, Devita never disputed the claim or asked for it to be removed.

Carmine thought he could talk, talk, talk about all his illicit operations and his philosophy of being in the public eye as accounting for a bullet-proof shield against government prosecution -- failed! Carmine is facing the RICO for charges stemming from organized sportsbooks to loansharking to extortion to tax evasion & fraud.

Carmine Devita is learning he's not the Tony S of Jersey and that he in fact may spend as much as twenty-five years in prison. Had he kept his mouth shut a little more, he may have been just fine. Recently Carmine broke the last straw with authorities when he publicly promised to organize a rally at the Shawn Ray Pro-Am Classic in Denver, CO. Devita's online mouthpiece Darnell Johnson (a fmr. teen npc competitor of minor prominence) asserts that Carmine is no longer questioning Bob Cicherillo's victory, he never had issues with it, he was just angry that he lost twenty-five large (as opposed to the five he mentioned on various posts) when his pick (Pavol Jablonicky) came in third.

Orville Baker, a resident at the Fawnlake Community in South Jersey, admitted by phone that Carmine offered him Cicherillo ar 2:1, Claude Groulx at 8:1, Jeffers at 15:1, and longshot Jablonicky at 60:1. "Everybody was going for Bob; he was tellin people Bob Cicherillo was going to be first with Groulx a close second. When I asked about the longshot, he said Jablonicky was nearly sixty years old, suffered of heart troubles, and would be coming in at barely 200 with wet clothes on. He made Jablonicky sound like he had just been liberated from a nazi death camp." And that would fit the m.o. of the Carmine I've known for almost twenty years. In his heart I think Carmine was convinced Pavol was going to be the upset of the evening. A lot of people, even here in South Jersey, may not be aware of this, but Carmine was in Hungary in '04 when Pavol took that show, so I guess he associated Master's World Championship PAVOL with 2004 Hungarian Pro PAVOL and he got a loud reality check.