A Lucchese gangster who sent one of his shakedown victims an online bio with his mob bonafides told a judge Tuesday that it’s not his fault he has such a scary reputation.
Speaking at his Brooklyn Federal Court sentencing Tuesday, Joseph Cutaia, 47, insisted that his victims were actually his friends, and that they were scared of him “because of my reputation, I guess, which is not my fault.”
Cutaia, who got a five-year prison sentence Tuesday, played up his supposed friendship with his victims, both in the merchant cash advance business — one who he squeezed out of $50,000, the other who he threatened and demanded the expensive watch off his wrist.
“I ruined a friendship with an argument,” Cutaia said of the extortion in a statement to Brooklyn Federal Court Judge Margo Brodie, explaining that when he got out of prison after serving 15 years for robbery, “People were promising me stuff.”
But Assistant U.S. Attorney Devon Lash pointed out that the victims didn’t know him prior to the extortion.
The man he muscled out of $50,000, identified as John Doe #1, knew of Cutaia from growing up in the same neighborhood, but had never spoken to him — until Cutaia called him from a contraband phone in August 2023, shortly before his release from prison to start his extortion efforts.
“John Doe #1 was in no stretch of the imagination a friend of the defendant. He was purely his victim,” she said.
Cutaia, grandson of the late Lucchese capo Domenico Cutaia, sent his bio from a “Mob Facts” web page to John Doe #1 in Dec. 2023, shortly after his release from prison in a home invasion robbery case.
“Lucchese Crime family Associate Joseph Cutaia (T-L) Son of Soldier Salvatore (B-R) & Grandson of deceased Various Crew CAPO Domenico (B-L) has been released from Prison. Speculated to be a future force to be reckoned with,” the bio reads, according to the feds.
That started a months-long extortion effort, with Cutaia telling John Doe #1 in an exchange of messages, “I don’t care who’s listening [I’m] going to put you under that building.”
His second victim, John Doe #2, co-owned a merchant cash advance business. In April 2024, Cutaia showed up with a gun, threatening to “spray the place” and yelling that he was owed $100,000.
He then demanded the victim and a second man give him the watches off their wrists, a Rolex Daytona with a gold face and black leather wristband and a Patek Philippe Nautilus. After his arrest in June 2024, Cutaia asked his wife to get rid of the Rolex, and to disable his cell phone.
Cutaia tried to downplay the incident in his statement to the judge, nearly scorching his plea agreement in the process.
“Things got out of hand,” he said, “I acted off emotion, and I acted off aggression, and I was wrong for that… And I asked them for their watches, I didn’t demand them.”
That led Brodie to point out that one of the charges Cutaia pleaded guilty to involved stealing the watches and taking them across state lines, and his remarks contradicted that admission.
His lawyer, Gary Cutler, did quick damage control, insisting that Cutaia admitted that he stole the watches.
“They gave them to me because I guess they were afraid of me,” Cutaia said. “Yes, your honor, I threatened them.”
Brodie told Cutaia that he appeared to lack remorse, and that his actions flew in the face of family members’ letters describing him as good-hearted.
“Extorting money and stealing from others, even though that you consider to be your friends, undermines the argument that you have a genuine good heart,” she said. “You seem to be suggesting that it’s OK to extort your friends.”
As part of his sentence, Cutaia must forfeit $210,000 and pay restitution to his victims, $50,000 to John Doe #1 and $40,000 to John Doe #2.
He also could face an additional two years behind bars when he’s sentenced by a separate judge on Friday for violating his supervised release in his robbery case.
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