By ASHLEY MATOS
A husband and wife fraud team was sentenced Thursday in Manhattan Supreme Court in connection to a 2015 multi-million dollar oil scam which involved nine companies.
After being sentenced to probation and 250 hours of community service, Tonette Algerio and her family watched teary-eyed as her husband, Frank Algerio, was sentenced to two to six years in jail and was led away in handcuffs. Both pleaded guilty.
The couple was charged in connection with heating oil fraud that totaled $34 million, where customers were shorted on oil and the excess was sold on the black market. In 2015, they were charged with enterprise corruption, criminal possession of stolen property, scheme to defraud, and falsifying business records.
Lawyers for both defendants requested that the wife be allowed to visit her husband even though as a felon on probation she ordinarily would not be allowed to leave the five boroughs. Justice Arlene Goldberg confirmed that she had made a note in the file to allow the wife to leave the city for reasons related to work, community service or visiting her husband.
Among the family members present were their son, who sat stone-faced in the back of the courtroom with his wife and toddler daughter. The defendants’ daughter, Tara Algerio-Vento, sat next to her mother, sobbing, as the sentence was handed down. Both son and the lawyer tried to comfort Tara, but she turned away and told them to leave her alone as they left the courtroom.
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