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A Sept. 11 fraudster has been ordered to pay back more than three times the $1 million-plus he scammed by faking a disabling back injury.
Former Port Authority painter Mario Mastellone — who already served a 30-month prison sentence for his scheme — was slapped with triple damages and an $11,000 fine in response to a civil suit filed by the feds.
“Mastellone’s deception — defrauding a fund meant to alleviate the suffering of 9/11 victims — is sufficiently serious to warrant the maximum penalty,” Manhattan federal Judge Denise Cote wrote.
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara yesterday called the ruling “particularly gratifying” because it came “just days after the 10th anniversary of that unspeakable horror.”
Mastellone, 44, told the Sept. 11th Victim Compensation Fund that he suffered a herniated disk while fleeing the north tower of the World Trade Center during the 2001 terror attacks.
But he was caught on video dancing up a storm while wearing a party hat at a cousin’s wedding reception just weeks after the attacks.
A camera hidden by investigators outside his East Windsor, NJ, home also later recorded Mastellone clearing snow from his driveway and waxing his car.
He pleaded guilty in 2008 under terms of a deal that only required him to pay $125,000 in fines and restitution.
But the feds filed suit against him last year, just days after he was sprung from the slammer.
Cote’s ruling noted that Mastellone didn’t respond to a recent prosecution motion for summary judgment in the case.
Mastellone’s lawyer, Pamela Roth, wouldn’t explain why she didn’t answer those papers but said she was “a little shocked” and would immediately appeal the ruling.
Roth said Mastellone, a married father of three, works part-time at a bicycle shop and “can barely support himself.”
“For Judge Cote to now punish him with treble damages, I think is extreme,” she said.
Mastellone said yesterday he didn’t know at the time he was pleading guilty to fraud, insisting: “I have doctors’ records from here to California to prove I was hurt and injured on 9/11.”
He also blamed his predicament on a cousin who recorded his fancy footwork — which he said came after “so many painkillers and alcohol” — then gave the tape to the FBI.
“My cousins targeted me because they got me the job and they felt in a sick way that I didn’t deserve anything,” he said.