#Inside Benjamin Bifalco’s alleged plot to fix an NCAA basketball game

Benjamin Bifalco graduated from Wagner College on Staten Island last year with a major in finance and minors in government and political science. But he did his most intense research for a senior project at which he failed miserably: attempting to fix an NCAA college basketball game. For this, he is now facing up to six months in prison.

In February, Bifalco, 25, pleaded guilty to attempted sports bribery involving a basketball game between two unidentified Division I schools.

Sources say the contest in question was a Dec. 16, 2018, game that the Wagner Seahawks and the heavily favored St. John’s University Red Storm played at the Johnnies’ home court at Carnesecca Arena in Queens.

In a tape-recorded talk four days before the game, Bifalco told his childhood friend, Colombo mob-family associate Joseph Amato Jr., that he had been dreaming about fixing a basketball game since freshman year. He also told Amato that he’d already paid $7,500 to three Seahawks starters he’d known since they were freshmen and that he was going to bet $50,000 on the game.

During the discussion, Bifalco told Amato that his cash outlay was half of what he had promised the players if they agreed to lose the game by more than 20 points.

When he won his bet, he said, “I’ll give them the other half each. They each got $2,500, and I’ll give them the rest of the money when it’s done with,” according to a transcript of the conversation.

Amato knows a little about sports betting — he’s charged with several illegal gambling counts in a related 16-defendant case — and human nature, too. He asked his college buddy with a touch of sarcasm if he was sure the players would deliver “because everyone is really personable and everyone will tell you the truth?”

“No,” Bifalco stated seven times. “They’re my f–king boys since f–king freshman year and we’ve always talked it,” he said, explaining that in their early years at the small liberal-arts Staten Island college, the team was so bad “there was never an opportunity because Wagner never had a spread [betting line]” on its games.

Amato also wondered where Bifalco got “50K to bet on a game?”

He was still “trying to figure out” where to get the cash to bet, Bifalco replied. And in an apparent effort to convince his friend to front it to him, he explained that he did “research on like how to throw a game” and knew what he was doing.

“You have to get at least two people who touch the ball for more than 30 minutes in the game,” he said, and decided that “just to make myself safe” he would “get three people that touch the ball more than 30 minutes in the game.”

Bifalco said that he had told his No. 1 Seahawk that he needed him to “get me two people that play more than 30” because they have “the biggest impact on the game, so he called them down to his dorm room, and we f–king met and we talked and they were like yo,” he said.

“Let me explain the scenario,” Bifalco continued. “Wagner is 4 and 4; that’s their record. They’re playing St. John’s. St. John’s is 9 and 0. I said, ‘If you guys lose by one point or you guys lose by 100, it don’t make a f–king difference. You’re gonna lose to St. John’s.’ They’re f–king unbelievable this year, and they might even make the NCAA tournament.”

“Wagner versus St. John’s?” asked Amato, who likely didn’t believe what he was hearing from his college buddy.

“Yeah,” said Bifalco. “St. John’s is home, so this is why it’s gonna work,” he said: “They’re gonna have the refs on their side already. Wagner’s team sucks. They honestly suck. So, if we can have three people that impact the game the most, miss free throws, bring the shot clock down to one [second] before every shot, control the pace of the game, so it’s not high-scoring.”

For Wagner to lose by a lot of points, it would make sense for his charges to shoot quickly — and also miss, of course — when they got the ball so St. Johns would have more chances to run up the score.

But Bifalco was thinking out of the box.

“To hedge myself,” he said, “I’m gonna take St. John’s’ spread, and I’m gonna take the under,” or bet that the two teams would score less than the “over /under number” which was 148. “I told them, ‘I need you guys to score the least as possible.’ They were like, yo. They were like, ‘You have our word, we are going to do everything in our f– king possibility to do this.’ ”

“What if they screw you over?” asked Amato.

“No, they’re not like that, bro. You could even come and meet them with me,” he replied. “I’m snapping them back and forth; they’re snapping me right now, they’re like ‘Yo, we’re honestly gonna do everything we f–king can,’ ” he said, indicating they were texting each other using Snapchat.

On game day, a couple hours before tipoff, Bifalco called Amato and said that all systems were go and that he had “personally” bet $17,500 on the game. The betting line ended up at 17, a few points less than 20, so Bifalco had a cushion.

But he was “worried” that one, or maybe two of his players might “foul out.” That was “not going to be f–king good,” he said, but he was confident he’d still win his bet and be able to “put a down payment on a house.”

But as it turned out, Bifalco was all talk.

Bifalco wasn’t able to pay off any of the Wagner Seahawks and didn’t wager any money on the game, either.

That was perhaps the luckiest thing about his harebrained scheme. That’s because St. John’s, after leading by only a single point at halftime, went on to win easily, 73-58, but not by enough to cover the 17-point spread. He did have the right idea about betting the under, though.

Also lucky was that Amato didn’t trust Bifalco to fix the game and, therefore, never bet any money — meaning Bifalco wasn’t sideways with the Colombo family.

Bifalco admitted to Brooklyn federal Judge I. Leo Glasser that he did “communicate through Snapchat” and “offered a sum of money to a player to lose by a certain amount of points,” but when “the player refused to accept the money, nothing further was done.”

“Had you actually made an offer of payment to this basketball player?” asked Glasser.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Bifalco replied.

“Was there somebody else involved in the scheme?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“It was just you and the basketball player?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Bifalco had taken a job out of college working for local Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis but was fired the day he was indicted.

Technically, Bifalco faces up to five years in prison on Aug. 18 — and up to six months behind bars, according to part of a plea agreement with the government. But Bifalco’s lawyer is hoping for leniency.

“Mr. Bifalco’s activities were more of inappropriate braggadocio than anything else,” said attorney Vincent Martinelli. “We are hoping for a non-jail sentence.”

This is an edited version of an article by Jerry Capeci that first appeared on ganglandnews.com.