Botched murder in the Bronx reminds people of mafia past
The shots
popped at 6:30 on the sunny morning of July 11, at the corner of a quiet
street near the water in the Bronx. Just off Tierney Place in Throgs
Neck, Salvatore Zottola, 41, was ambushed by a gunman, who sped off
while Mr. Zottola, full of gunshot wounds, rolled on the pavement.
The
attack lasted 17 seconds and was caught on a grainy security camera
video released by the New York Police Department. As far as murder
attempts go, it wasn’t much of one. The gunman was sloppy. Gravely
injured but alive, Mr. Zottola was whisked to Jacobi Medical Center.
That
same afternoon, his father, Sylvester Zottola, was in court for charges
stemming from his own brush with death. In June, the elder Mr. Zottola
had brandished an unlicensed gun at someone who threatened him outside
his home, the police said. The unknown thug vanished, and the
71-year-old was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a
firearm.
It all might be chalked up
as a bizarre coincidence, had both Zottolas not kept company with
reputed mobsters. The police say the father and son are noted associates
of New York’s Bonanno crime family.
Who is after the duo remains a mystery.
The police said they are looking at whether the two episodes are
connected, and that the younger Mr. Zottola, who has since recovered,
has spoken with detectives.
But the
police stopped short of characterizing those discussions as
“cooperation,” and would not comment further. The Bronx district
attorney’s office said it has handed the case over to federal
investigators, who, after a flurry of media attention, have gone quiet.
The ordeal adds another footnote to the epilogue of the mafia’s golden age. Gone are the days when crime bosses like Paul Castellano were
gunned down outside Midtown restaurants by hit men. From Boston to
Philadelphia, the aging dons of America’s most notorious crime families
have been knocked off, locked up or have settled into less illicit — or
at least less violent — retirements.
But every so often there is a reminder that those organizations, though weakened, are still here.
“I
don’t think the heyday of the mob is dead,” said Nicole Argentieri, a
former federal prosecutor who worked on several organized crime cases in
New York, including one that involved the Zottolas. “I think people
have romanticized it and are sympathetic to them.”
Indeed, bullets with mob fingerprints — if only figurative — have flown
across the five boroughs over the last decade, albeit infrequently.
In June 2016, a Brooklyn pizzeria owner, Louis Barbati, 61, was gunned down in his backyard in what was widely rumored to be a mob hit. In 2009, Anthony Seccafico, who the police said was a member of the Bonnano family, was shot to death on Staten Island.
“The
fact that they aren’t as flagrant and notorious as they used to be
doesn’t mean they’re not there,” David Fritchey, a retired federal
prosecutor who helped put away Philadelphia’s bosses in the early 2000s,
said of organized crime families. “They’re still operating and they
still have some power.”
According to
court filings, the elder Mr. Zottola, known as “Sally Daz,” is one of
that bygone era’s dwindling crew. His eponymous D.A.Z. Amusements
supplied “Joker Poker” slot machines to mob-controlled gambling hubs,
court documents show.
According to
the documents, it was the elder Zottola’s proclivities that brought his
son, Salvatore, into the circle of Vincent J. Basciano, the boss of the
Bonanno crime family in the early 2000s. The father and son helped
service Mr. Basciano’s poker machines, the documents charge, and Mr.
Basciano’s girlfriend, Debra Kalb, lived at the Zottolas’ Throgs Neck
compound at the turn of the century.
The
extent to which the traditional structures of New York organized crime
families have been decimated by prosecutors in recent years is difficult
to overstate. Even as the Justice Department’s organized crime
resources were shifted to terrorism after Sept. 11, sweeping
racketeering cases put most of the bosses in the Northeast into prison
cells.
Mr. Zottola’s syndicate
clients met similar fates. Mr. Basciano, known as “Vinny Gorgeous,” led
the Bonanno enterprise only briefly before he was convicted of
racketeering and murder, for which he is now serving a life sentence.
The Zottolas
are mentioned sporadically in court filings from Mr. Basciano’s case,
but it is unclear what, if any, of their mafia ties remain. John Meglio,
a lawyer for the Zottolas, said his clients would not comment.
Salvatore
Zottola’s would-be killer remains at large, and his father’s next court
date has been pushed to September. For now, the Zottola’s compound in
Throgs Neck remains quiet.
“They’re not out of business by a long sight,” Mr. Fritchey said of crime families. But, he added, “They’re not what they were.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/26/nyregion/bronx-assassination-mafia-nyc.html
