Feds: Death penalty possible in Bronx murder-for-hire case
Federal prosecutors said Friday they may seek the death penalty in the case of five men charged in a murder-for-hire plot which last year took the life of reputed Bonanno crime family associate Sylvester Zottola.
In a pretrial hearing before Brooklyn federal judge Raymond Dearie, Assistant U. S. Attorney Lindsay Gerdes also disclosed that a GPS tracking device was found on the undercarriage of Zottola’s car when he was shot several times as he sat in the vehicle in the drive-up lane of a McDonald’s in the Claremont section of the Bronx.
Records uncovered in the ongoing investigation indicated that the device was activated on Sept. 29, 2018, just six days before Zottola, 71, was assassinated on Oct. 4, said Gerdes. The prosecutor told Dearie that video surveillance of the location where the GPS was turned on showed some of the defendants handling what appeared to be the device by Zottola’s vehicle.
Gerdes did not identify which defendants she was referring to.
None of the defendants' attorneys addressed the GPS allegations in open court.
A federal grand jury indicted five men in connection with the murder plot: Bushawn “Shelz” Shelton, Herman “Taliban” Blanco, Arthur Codner, Kalik McFarlane and Himen “Ace” Ross. The indictment accused the defendants of the murder conspiracy and related weapons charges.
The alleged plot involved not only the murder of Zottola, known as “Sally Daz,” but also an attempt to kill his son Salvatore Zottola, 42, who was shot several times on a Bronx street last year but survived.
Gerdes didn’t throw any light on a possible motive for the murder-for-hire plot and didn’t identify the shooters. But law enforcement sources believe that the five defendants, some of whom had reputed ties to the Bloods gang, may have been hired by Albanian gangsters seeking to take over Zottola’s video gambling machine operations in the Bronx.
A well-liked businessman in the Bronx, Zottola, according to investigators and court records, had longstanding ties to former Bonanno crime family street boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano. Currently doing a term of life in prison without parole following his conviction for racketeering murder, Basciano was a major organized crime figure until his arrest in November 2004.
The fact that prosecutors may seek the death penalty doesn’t necessarily mean it will be sought at trial or for all of the defendants. A lengthy procedure is involved in which Department of Justice officials in Washington will review the case and must approve the decision, which could take three to six months, said Gerdes.
Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Michael Marinaccio, who is representing Ross, said that in his experience the process can take at least six months and would involve arguments by defense attorneys and prosecutors to senior Department of Justice officials, who make the decision on whether capital punishment would be sought.
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