Anthony Zottola gets life for having NYC mobster dad Sylvester Zottola killed in murder-for-hire plot
BROOKLYN, NEW YORK: Anthony Zottola was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole by a federal judge in Brooklyn on Friday. He was found guilty of hiring gang members to kill his father, Sylvester 'Sally Daz' Zottola, 71 in order to inherit the family riches following a six-week jury trial.
Himen Ross, the hitman hired to fire the fatal rounds, was also given a life sentence on Friday. Sylvester had previously survived being viciously hacked in the throat by intruders who had broken into his house. Then a gun was pointed at his head, but it didn't shoot. That's all after a shooter opened fire on him while he was traveling along an expressway.
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'It was a hit, there's no doubt about it'
In spite of surviving six attempted murders over the course of a year, Sylvester Zottola was shot and killed while performing a routine task at a Bronx McDonald's drive-thru which was ordering a coffee."It was a hit, there's no doubt about it," said retired NYPD Chief of Detectives Robert Boyce to ABC 7. "It's a unique case in the fact that it overtly looks like a mob-related case and it wasn't", he added. Sylvester didn't know behind all these attempts, his son Anthony was playing the main role. Salvatore, his elder son who was also in the car, escaped alive.
Anthony wanted to take control of 90 properties owned by Sylvester
Anthony was given two life terms by United States District Judge Hector Gonzalez in retaliation for Sylvester "Sally Daz" Zottola, being shot to death in a hail of bullets in October 2018 as part of a greedy murder-for-hire and conspiracy plot as per NY Post. The prosecutors said Anthony wanted to take control of 90 properties owned by Sylvester.
Prosecutors claimed that throughout Zottola's six-week trial, he developed the assassination scheme with the assistance of inept Bloods gang leader Bushawn Shelton, with whom he spoke about the murder in hundreds of coded text messages. Prosecutors claim that Sally Daz used the money he earned from operating illicit "Joker Poker" gambling machines for the mob to invest in real estate to create the kind of fortune Zottola desired.
In 2017 someone punched Sylvester to the ground outside his home, then in the same year, he was reportedly menaced at gunpoint by a masked individual while driving an Expressway. On December 27th of 2017, three men broke into his house and slashed his throat, however, he survived. On October 4th of that year, he was finally killed. "We're just taking care of customers, somebody just ran to the car and shot at him," A McDonald's who was working at the drive-thru told police in a 911 call.