NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — A federal jury in Brooklyn convicted the son of a murder victim on Wednesday for conspiring to have his father and brother killed in order to take over the family business.
The man who fatally shot his father was also convicted alongside him, and five other conspirators had previously pleaded guilty.
Anthony Zottola Sr., 44, plotted with Himen Ross, 36, to kill his family members in order to take over their family’s multi-million dollar real estate empire.
Anthony’s brother, Salvatore Zottola, was shot in the head and chest in July 2018.
He survived the attempts on his life, but Sylvester Zottola — Anthony and Salvatore’s 71-year-old father — wasn’t so lucky.
He was beaten, had his throat slashed and was stabbed during two attacks in November 2017 and December 2017.
On Oct. 4, 2018, Ross fatally shot him while he waited to pick up coffee from a McDonald’s drive-thru in the Bronx.
The elder Zottola controlled a residential real estate portfolio worth tens of millions of dollars.
The defendant helped manage the business, maintained properties and collected rent.
He also ran A&S Maintenance alongside his brother as co-owners.
Anthony hired Bushawn Shelton to kill his father, who in turn recruited a team of assassins.
Shelton, who pleaded guilty in August, sent Ross a picture of more than $200,000 cash after he fatally shot Sylvester.
During the trial, a prosecutor said the family “had ties to the mafia,” according to the New York Times.
Salvatore reportedly testified that his father was friendly with the Bonanno crime family, but was never a “made man.”
“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks. It was his own son, who was so determined to control the family’s lucrative real estate business that he hired a gang of hit men to murder his father,” said U.S. Attorney Breon Peace. “For sentencing his father to a violent death, Anthony Zottola and his co-defendant will spend the rest of their lives in prison where they belong as a result of today’s verdict.”
Both Anthony Zottola and Himen Ross face mandatory life sentences for their murder-for-hire plot.
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