Global Courant 2023-04-15 06:01:56
A 45-year-old New York man was given two life sentences on Friday without the possibility of parole for ordering an assassination attempt on his father, a Bronx mobster, in October 2018.
Anthony Zottola was found guilty last year of a murder-for-hire that left his father Sylvester “Sally Daz” Zottola, 71, dead after being shot multiple times outside a Bronx McDonald’s.
Prosecutors said Zottola ordered the hit on his father because he wanted to take control of his $45 million real estate empire, according to the New York Post.
“He has subjected his family to a reign of terror,” said U.S. District Judge Hector Gonzalez during sentencing. “I see greed and money as one of the main reasons why this heinous crime was committed.”
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Anthony Zottola was sentenced to life in prison for his father’s murder-for-hire plot. (US lawyer)
Zottola’s brother, Salvatore, made a victim impact statement in court on Friday.
“Daddy gave you everything,” he said. “What you did to me and Dad is unimaginable.”
Federal prosecutors alleged that Zottola had his Lucchese and Bonanno organized crime family-associated father hounded by goons for about a year, who stabbed and beat him several times in botched attempts on his life before he was finally killed by mobster Himan Ross.
Ross was also sentenced to life in prison.
In addition to murder-for-hire, Zottola was also convicted of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and firearms offences.
Salvatore Zottola was shot to death in the drive-thru of a Bronx McDonald’s in 2018. (Nina Cochran/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
He plotted the murder with gang leader Bushawn Shelton, who he said had already pleaded guilty the mail.
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“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten and stabbed without knowing who orchestrated the attacks,” said Breon Peace, the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. “It was his own son, who was so determined to take control of the family’s lucrative real estate business that he hired a gang of hitmen to kill his father.”
He continued, “Because he sentenced his father to a violent death, Anthony Zottola and his co-defendant will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”
Zottola’s lawyer Ilana Haramati called life in prison a “terrible finality”.
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“He just wants to continue to be a source of support for his kids as much as possible,” she said.
