“I mean, why not?” Amato answered. “You talk about everything else on the f------ phone, and you’re an idiot.”

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Over the next few days, Bifalco detailed to Amato how he planned on persuading the players to lose a game by a wide margin, thus not covering the point spread, and tried to convince Amato that he should bet a significant sum on the other team, the favorite in the game. But shortly before the game in December, Amato sent two text messages to alleged Colombo family member Thomas Scorcia warning him off the bet, suggesting the plan was not actually carried out.

“Ok I wouldn’t trust the game I was telling u about” and “I’m not touching it personally[,]” Amato wrote, according to the court documents.

The favored team did not end up covering the spread, and the men would have lost their bets had they been placed, prosecutors noted.

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The New York Post reported Thursday that Bifalco, who has been charged with one count of sports bribery, recently had been hired as director of community affairs for New York State Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis, who said in a statement that she fired him after learning of his arrest.

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“He was active in local politics, planning to apply to law school and was recommended to me by a number of people,” said Malliotakis, a Republican who lost the New York City mayoral election to Bill de Blasio in 2017. “I am shocked and saddened by this news. I have zero tolerance for criminal activity.”

College basketball has seen numerous instances of point-shaving come to light, including the CCNY point-shaving scandal of the early 1950s, the Boston College scandal in the late 1970s — perpetrated in part by the Lucchese family associates portrayed in the classic mob film “Goodfellas” — and the Tulane scandal of the early 1980s, which in part led to the dissolution of the Green Wave men’s basketball program for four seasons.

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The federal investigation into the Colombo family began in 2016 after a GPS tracking device was found concealed on a New York City bus. Investigators learned that Joseph Amato Sr., an alleged Colombo captain, had used the device to track the whereabouts of his then-girlfriend until she discovered it on her vehicle, removed it and had it placed on the bus, where it was discovered by the Metropolitan Transit Authority at a depot in Staten Island.

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From there, federal investigators received court authorization to hack into the defendants’ cellphones, determining that Amato Sr. and his crew “used violence and threats of violence to earn illegal proceeds and solidify the crew’s reputation and standing” while also attempting the game-fixing scandal.

Weakened by years of prosecutions and bloody civil wars, the Colombo family is considered the smallest of New York’s “Five Families.”

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“The mafia is not the criminal threat it once was, but we remain vigilant and will vigorously investigate and prosecute members and associates who engage in violence and extortion to intimidate victims and enrich themselves and their crime family,” U.S. Attorney Richard P. Donoghue said in a statement.