Countywide : Imprisoned Grosso Sentenced For Scam

A reputed organized crime figure already serving time in state prison for his part in the near-fatal shooting of a Santa Ana topless bar operator has been sentenced on theft charges in an unrelated case.

Joseph Angelo Grosso, 46, serving 26 years to life for the shooting of William Carroll, a financial backer of the Mustang Club, pleaded guilty in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana to swindling investors in a limousine business and in a scheme to gamble away investors’ money on Las Vegas and Atlantic City trips.

Judge Myron S. Brown on Wednesday sentenced Grosso to two years in prison, to run concurrent with the time he is already serving. He was sentenced last month in the Carroll shooting.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ken Chinn said, “The state prison system will be aware of these new charges and will take it into account when his parole date comes up.”

Chinn said Grosso and George Yudzevich began the scams in 1985. Yudzevich, found murdered in 1987, worked as a bouncer at the Mustang Club.

Grosso, of Costa Mesa, attracted investors by a newspaper advertisement promising large profits by leasing limousines. Police said the limousine leasing was at least in part a legitimate operation. Investors leased their limousines from outside sources, then turned the vehicles, plus $20,000 per investor, over to the limousine service. The service guaranteed to hire out the limousines on the investors’ behalf.

But the service did not live up to its agreement, Chinn said. The firm, which promised to handle all aspects of leasing the limousines, including providing drivers, in fact was hiring out only one limousine, leaving the others idle. The service employed only one driver.

In the gambling scam, Grosso offered some a chance to “make the big money” by helping Las Vegas and Atlantic City casinos launder organized crime money and skim casino profits.

At least nine Orange County residents lost a total of about $350,000. Victims were led to believe that Caesars Palace, MGM Grand Hotel, Tropicana Hotel and Country Club and Barbary Coast Hotel and Casino were involved in the laundering scheme, according to Chinn.