Con man $tiffed ‘mobster’
Prison might be the safest place for Ponzi schemer Hamlet Peralta.
Peralta, whose $12 million fraud helped crack the NYPD corruption scandal, shortchanged a reputed mobster from whom he borrowed $100,000, according to an FBI affidavit.
Wiretaps of Peralta’s cellphone caught him twice calling the Park Side Restaurant in Corona, Queens, on March 7, 2015, and asking for “Tony,” who the feds identified as eatery owner and reputed Genovese crime-family captain Anthony “Tough Tony” Federici, Special Agent Joseph Downs wrote the following month.
During the first call, the affidavit filed in Manhattan federal court says Peralta told Federici he had “a $40,000 certified check for you right now,” adding: “I’m sending my guy to you with the check.”
Peralta also promised Federici the other $60,000 by March 9, and lamented that “Sammy is going to kill me,” in reference to Sammy Tsioumas, who Downs described as a “longtime associate” of Federici’s.
About three hours later, Peralta called back and Federici told him, “I got the check.”
Peralta apparently didn’t keep his word about paying the rest, because on March 13, the feds recorded Tsioumas telling him, “Tony is putting a lot of pressure on me.”
When Peralta insisted that “the money is coming in either tonight or tomorrow,” Tsioumas responded that money wasn’t the issue, and that Federici was very upset because Peralta wasn’t returning calls.
Peralta said he’d compensate Federici for dodging him and later mentioned 10 bottles of Remy Martin Louis XIII cognac, which sells for more than $3,000 a bottle, the affidavit says.
But Peralta was still on the hook as of April 20, when a wiretap caught him promising to pay Tsioumas the next day.
Federici declined to comment Sunday.
“I don’t know anything about that,” he said. “If you want a sandwich, I’ll give you a sandwich,” he added before muttering an expletive and storming inside his restaurant.
Tsioumas later said Federici agreed to loan Peralta $100,000 to finance the purchase of liquor for a planned Bronx strip club after Tsioumas introduced the two in the fall of 2014.
Peralta was supposed to repay the money, interestfree, two months later, but never coughed up anything beyond the initial $40,000, Tsioumas said.
“I started calling Hamlet. He said, ‘I’m going to give you the rest of the money this week.’ And that was it. He just disappeared. And that’s when he got arrested,” Tsioumas said.
“This guy was a sweet talker . . . Everybody got a little bamboozled there.”