Former mobster faces federal gun charge

A former East Coast mobster living in Spokane, with previous convictions for killing a man, running a bookmaking operation and drug dealing, is back in jail on a federal firearms charge.
Nicholas P. “Mike” Mitola Jr. was arrested after allegedly selling a .44-caliber Magnum revolver and ammunition for $500 to an FBI informant, authorities said.
The informant reportedly said he needed the handgun to carry out a murder in another state.
The 57-year-old suspect, indicted last week on a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm and hollow-point ammunition, was ordered held without bail after a detention hearing Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Cynthia Imbrogno.
Mitola was arrested by FBI agents Friday when he was summoned to the U.S. Courthouse in downtown Spokane to meet with a federal parole officer supervising him for the June 2000 conviction for operating the illegal gambling business.
At Tuesday’s court hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Harrington asked that Mitola be held in jail without bond as a “danger to the community.”
The prosecutor backed his case with a court report detailing Mitola’s previous convictions for grand larceny, drug trafficking, bookmaking and a 1992 homicide in Spokane.
In that case, the victim was stabbed after a cocaine deal went sour at Mitola’s house in northeast Spokane. The victim, an Iranian immigrant, became angry after he paid cash for cocaine but was delivered sugar, investigators said.
The victim was dismembered in Mitola’s bathtub before the body parts were hidden in the trunk of an old car hidden in the woods in Pend Oreille County.
Mitola claimed he killed the man in self-defense. The Spokane County prosecutor’s office allowed him to plead guilty to manslaughter. He served two years and four months before being released from prison, state records show.
He returned to Spokane and in 1999 set up a bookmaking operation behind a faux espresso stand that never served a cup of coffee.
Instead, the espresso business was used by Mitola and a team of 15 other bookies to launder as much as $100,000 a week in illegal sports betting. The bookies took a 10 percent cut of the action, their “juice,” prosecutors said in court hearings.
The bookmaking case was described as the largest bookmaking ring ever broken in Spokane.
Mitola ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal charge of operating an illegal gambling business. In September 2000, he was sentenced to serve two years in federal prison.
If convicted of the newest charge, Mitola faces a mandatory minimum of 15 years in prison if it’s determined his previous convictions qualify him as an “armed career criminal.”
That federal law is intended to hand out stiff prison terms to repeat criminals caught with firearms.
Mitola beat a drug charge and lengthy prison time by agreeing to become the FBI’s star witness in the 1989 prosecution in New Jersey of suspected leaders of the Lucchese organized crime family.
He was given a new identity, “Mike Milano,” and moved to Spokane under the federal Witness Protection Program. He later was kicked out of the program after violating its terms by having contact with a family member. He then resumed using his birth name, Nicholas Peter Mitola.
Against the advice of federal defender Gerald Smith, Mitola said Tuesday he wanted to address the court.
“I’ve never caused a problem,” Mitola told the court. “I’m asking this court to grant me bail.”
Mitola said he has lived in the Spokane area since 1988, except when he was in prison, and has worked the past 37 months for Paul Davis Restoration, doing remodeling work.
The suspect said he has a wife and children to support and needs to help a family member recently injured in a car accident.
The judge said while she recognized Mitola’s “ties to the community,” she nonetheless agreed with the prosecutor’s argument that Mitola poses a danger and therefore shouldn’t be granted bond or release from jail before his trial.
Mitola’s “criminal history is quite significant and dates back well many years,” Imbrogno said.