Now some of our readers, and many Yorktown residents, have become aware that Tom Pomposello is better known by T-Bone Tommy, his movie and hockey knickname from a Netflix documentary called “Untold: Crime and Penalties,” which premiered in September 2021.
The documentary features Jim Galante, who bought a minor league hockey team for his son AJ and hired Pomposello as the equipment manager. Galante, was convicted of rigging the garbage hauling business in Danbury, and in Northern Westchester and Putnam counties, and served 7 years in Federal prison.
AJ Galante was 17 years old when his father put him in charge of the Danbury Thrashers minor league hockey team. AJ hired his middle school hockey coach Tommy T-Bone Pomposello to be the teams equipment manager. In the documentary, Pomposello became the only equipment manager to be suspended from the United Hockey League, for his ‘mistreatment’ of the opposing team.
US Attorney Kevin O’Connor, in 2007, said, “With respect to the wire fraud conspiracy charge, in 2004, the Danbury Trashers were a minor league hockey team associated with the United Hockey League. In pleading guilty, ZOLLO admitted that he helped the team circumvent the United Hockey League’s $275,000 annual salary cap. ZOLLO admitted that he placed either hockey players or their wives on the payroll of various trash companies as no-show employees and personally delivered the paychecks to the players for their no-show jobs. ZOLLO also facilitated certain players receiving additional unreported compensation in the form of double housing allowance payments. With these
supplemented salaries, the Trashers total payroll for the 2004-2005 season was approximately $750,000, exceeding the salary cap by approximately $475,000. Further, in July 2004, ZOLLO wrote a letter on AWD letterhead stating that the wife of a Trashers player had a three-year employment contract with AWD as an assistant sales manager when, in fact, she never worked for AWD. On June 8, 2006, a federal grand jury in New Haven returned an Indictment charging ZOLLO, 28 additional individuals and 10 businesses, including Automated Waste Disposal, on various charges stemming from a long-term investigation into the waste-hauling industry in Connecticut and eastern New York. Today, ZOLLO pleaded guilty to Counts 56 and 62 of the Indictment.”
I watched the Netflix documentary, which was amusing but also showed the violent side of hockey. You can watch it and judge yourself about Pomposello.
The takeaway from Pomposello, and his comments about Vishnu Patal, are that many media outlets in Westchester, and in New York City, picked up on the story, includng The Daily News, WINS Radio 1010, The Journal news, The Examiner News, and the Yorktown News, which got the story first and ran with it.
India West, the best Indian Newspaper in Print & Online, ran their story on November 16, “Pomposello did not return India-West’s calls left at his home number…Patel first ran for office in 2009, after retiring from a 36-year career at IBM. He told India-West that he and his family are “proud Americans.”
“Patel’s son Amit and his daughter Amy both graduated from West Point. Amit served in Afghanistan, while Amy served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Patel characterized himself as “the only brown guy on the City Council,” and the first non-white person to serve in that role in Yorktown, a small town with about 36,000 residents, 90 percent of whom are white.
“He said he was not surprised by Pomposello’s outburst on election night, given the divisive political rhetoric of the previous four years. “Donald Trump gave permission for the worst element to say and do things they would have never dared to do otherwise,” Patel stated. “No one attempted to stop Tom,” he added.
“In the days since, Patel said he has received “hundreds” of supportive letters, texts, and emails from local Republicans and Democrats. “I’m hoping that a new generation of Yorktown Republicans will shape a different future.”
“Patel said he did not plan to take action against Pomposello. “I have faced discrimination on the campaign trail before,” he said. “But my good name will shine on forever.”
“Patel is Town Board Liaison for the Community Housing Board; the Energy Advisory Committee; the Senior Citizens Advisory Committee; Tree Conservation Advisory Commission; and the Utilities Oversight Committee. While at IBM, he received several awards for his scientific discoveries. He and his wife Dipika immigrated to the U.S. in 1969,” writes India West, the latest media outlet to report the what T-Bone Tommy Pomposello said.
