The United States federal government began issuing $1200 stimulus checks this week, in the desperate hope of reviving an economy ravaged by the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. If they get their way, they will be receiving a little stimulus check of their own. It all goes back to an innocent game of prison ping-pong in 2013. In Brooklyn's Metropolitan Detention Center, mob boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli was one year into an 18-year bid for, you know, mob stuff (in this case, arranging murders of mafia rivals). While he was acquitted of other murders which would have seen him locked up for life, including that of NYPD officer Ralph Dols in 1997, Gioeli was still on the hook financially for a pair of robberies from the 1990s. A judge ordered him to pay $365,000 restitution for robbing a bank and a fur coat store. Struggling with diabetes and heart disease, Gioeli had embarked on a twice-weekly ping-pong regimen to improve his health. Wearing off-brand Crocs-style shoes as he played in a rec room near the showers, Gioeli slipped chasing a wild shot. He fell, breaking his patella. (Before making the easy jokes about mobsters breaking kneecaps, consider that the injury required surgery and a month-long stay in the hospital.) Sensing an opportunity, Gioeli filed a $10 million lawsuit against the federal prison for failing to maintain ITTF-approved playing conditions. He was awarded $250,000. The feds, meanwhile, were busy trying to get the $365,000 restitution the judge had ordered Gioeli to play them. Despite his lavish lifestyle, or perhaps because of it, there was not much left to seize. "The government’s investigation indicated that the proceeds of the Defendant’s offenses, which date back to the 1990’s, have been dissipated, disposed of or transferred to third parties, or are otherwise not available for forfeiture," wrote a US Marshals Service inspector, concluding that Gioeli's only "significant asset" was the settlement he had been awarded after his ping-pong accident. Now, the feds have filed a motion to seize what they can of Gioeli's last tangible asset. A judge will now decide whether to award the feds more than $182,000, or half of the amount of restitution he was originally ordered to pay. (If successful, the feds will recoup enough money to issue 152 stimulus checks.) The money appears destined to go from the feds to Gioeli back to the feds again, which makes a certain kind of sense. It is ping-pong money, after all.

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