Joseph Massino, the low-key Mafia boss who stunned the world of
organized crime in 2005 when it was revealed he had become a government
witness, has died after a short illness, sources close to his family
told Newsday.
Massino, once a trim and powerful man who would jump off the Cross Bay
Boulevard bridge in Queens and swim for hours, battled a number of
chronic health conditions including diabetes and obesity. He was 80 and
lived until recently in Ohio. Massino died Sept. 14 at a rehabilitation
facility in the New York City area, according to the sources.
Massino’s youngest daughter Joanne, who asked that her last name not be
published, confirmed his death but declined to comment further.
Over the years Massino navigated the treacherous world of the Mafia
families in New York, all the while running legitimate businesses such
as a sandwich shop in Queens, catering firms in Farmingdale and the
CasaBlanca Restaurant in Maspeth, which he forfeited after a federal
racketeering conviction in 2004.
“He ruled with an iron fist and kept order within the ranks,” said
former FBI supervisory special agent Charles Rooney, who investigated
the Sicilian faction of the crime family in the famous Pizza Connection
drug case.
Through tribute paid to by fellow mobsters along with illegal and legal
earnings, Massino amassed a fortune and after his conviction, had to
turn over $10 million in cash — some of which he had kept in his Howard
Beach home — as well as gold bars and other assets.
Massino actually wanted to cooperate within minutes after a Brooklyn
federal court jury found him guilty in July 2004 of racketeering,
including the orchestration of six mob murders, as boss of the Bonanno
crime family. Massino immediately approached presiding Judge Nicholas
Garaufis and said he wanted to cooperate, at which point Garaufis
appointed him a special lawyer to negotiate.
After several months, it was revealed that Massino, who faced a federal
death penalty trial in a different case, was cooperating against fellow
mobsters. In 2005, Massino formally entered the federal witness security
program. His life sentence was reduced to time served in 2013.
Born in Queens in January 1943, Massino was one of three sons of Anthony
and Adeline Massino and lived close to Maspeth. Massino was an athletic
young man who earned a reputation as being a street tough after
dropping out of school in the seventh grade.
Massino took a number of jobs, including working as a lifeguard at
Atlantic Beach on Long Island. As a young adult, Massino started a
coffee cart business, serving businesses in the Maspeth area.
But it was in the 1970s that Massino became associated with Philip
Rastelli, who rose to become boss of the Bonanno crime family. After
Rastelli went to prison, investigators said his trust in Massino grew.
Massino was inducted into the Mafia around 1977 and became a captain in
1979, according to the FBI. Two years later, in May 1981 according to
federal court testimony, Massino helped engineer the killings of the
three upstart captains — Philip Giaccone, Alphonse Indelicato and
Dominic Trinchera.— suspected of trying to gain control of the Bonanno
family.
After Massino served time in federal prison in the 1980s, he was
officially anointed as boss of the Bonanno family in 1991 upon
Rastelli’s death.
Although Massino was a friend of his neighbor John Gotti, head of the
Gambino family, he didn’t emulate his public stance and nightlife.
Instead, Massino kept a low profile and closed down mob social clubs to
frustrate FBI surveillance. To keep his name out of conversations that
could be bugged, Massino asked that fellow gangsters refer to him only
by tugging on their ears, a gesture that earned Massino the moniker “The
Ear.”
But by 2000, the FBI again focused on Massino. The result was a federal
indictment that led to his arrest on Jan. 9, 2003, along with his wife
Josephine's brother, Sal Vitale. But soon after, Vitale became a
government witness against Massino and testified at the mob boss’s 2004
trial.
After he became a government cooperating witness, Massino helped build a
case against his former street boss, Vincent “Vinnie Gorgeous”
Basciano. Massino also gave information to the FBI that allowed
investigators to dig up the bodies of the captains killed in May 1981.
Reputed Bonanno mob boss Michael “The Nose’’ Mancuso is headed
back to the slammer for 11 months — thanks partly to a phone chat with
an alleged fellow wiseguy about making pasta “gravy.”
Mancuso, 68, who was released in 2019 after serving a decade in
prison for signing off on a murderous hit, also had been using his
girlfriend’s Long Island eyeglass shop as a meet-up spot to huddle with
mob types and chowed at eateries with them, prosecutors said.
All of the occasions were no no’s, since Mancuso has been barred from any contact with other convicted felons.
“Are you gonna do the gravy today or make the sauce?” Mancuso asked
reputed Colombo soldier Michael Urvino on an Oct. 24, 2020, wiretapped
call, according to a transcript previously presented by prosecutors in
court to argue Mancuso was violating his release provisions.
Urvino responded, “No, I’m making it in the morning … cause we’re not gonna eat early. What time you want to eat tomorrow?”
“The Nose” responded, “I don’t care, five o’clock or so?”
The conversation appears innocent, given that other times Mancuso
allegedly used code words for Mafia business, the feds flagged it up in
the papers.
But the Italian food chit-chat was still taboo, since Urvino was convicted of racketeering, illegal gambling and conspiracy.
Mancuso attended his Brooklyn federal court hearing over the
violations Friday — accompanied by eyeglass purveyor and girlfriend
Laura Keller — and was slapped with the additional prison time over the
forbidden contact with the reputed La Cosa Nostra members.
Mancuso used Keller’s Great Neck eyeglass shop Real Eyes Optical “as a
meeting place” while he tried to cover up his rendezvous with the
alleged fellow wiseguys, prosecutors said in court papers in May.
In some of Mancuso’s calls, others could be heard “talking about
Mafia business,” prosecutor Michael Gibaldi said during the Friday
hearing as he asked the judge to put Mancuso away for another two years.
Gibaldi said Mancuso attended “at least one dinner where Mafia
business was discussed” and added that he had “significant concerns
about these contacts.”
Mancuso went to one Oct. 7, 2020, dinner at Elmont’s Salvatore’s
restaurant that was attended by Uvino, Colombo captain Vincent
Ricciardo, convict David Del Franco, Gambino associate Vito Cortesiano
and convict Joseph Russo, the feds claim.
But Mancuso’s lawyer, Stacy Richman insisted that while he may have
violated the conditions of his release, he had committed “no crimes.”
Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis told Mancuso he must surrender Sept. 6 to serve the new prison term.
“In between now and then, there are no dinners,” the judge said.
“This isn’t about someone who is jumping a turnstile,” Garaufis said.
“This is about being in touch with individuals or members who are
associated with organized crime or have a history of felonies.”
The judge also said that when Mancuso gets out, he can’t go back to
the eyeglass shop during his three years of supervised release.
Mancuso went to prison after pleading guilty to murder conspiracy for
signing off on the hit of Bonanno associate Randolph Pizzolo in 2004
when he was acting boss.
Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano had ordered the murder while
he was locked up because Pizzolo was considered reckless and
disobedient and Mancuso had Dominick Cicale carry out the deed.
The son of a Bronx mobster who ordered his dad rubbed out in a
heartless bid to seize his $45 million real estate empire was sentenced
to life in prison without the possibility of parole in Brooklyn federal
court Friday.
United States District Judge Hector Gonzalez handed down two life
sentences to Anthony Zottola, 45, for a greedy murder-for-hire and
conspiracy plot that killed 71-year-old Sylvester “Sally Daz” Zottola in
a hail of bullets in October 2018.
“Why? Anthony, my brother, why? What did you do? Dad gave you
everything,” Zottola’s brother, Salvatore, said during a victim impact
statement in court.
“What you did to me and dad is unimaginable.”
Zottola hired hitman Himen Ross, 36, to gun down his father in a
Bronx McDonald’s drive-through in a scheme to take control of his more
than 90 properties, according to prosecutors.
The hit came after six failed attempts to take out the Bonanno crime
family associate over roughly a year, along with Salvatore, who escaped a
gun attack alive.
On Friday, Judge Gonzalez tore into Zottola for the money-hungry crime and failing to show remorse.
“He subjected his family to a reign of terror,” Gonzalez said. “I
see greed and money as one of the core reasons why this heinous crime
was committed.”
Zottola, who burst into tears at the hearing, was also sentenced to additional 112 years behind bars for weapons charges.
Ross was also sentenced Friday to mandatory life in prison as
devastated family members of the dead mobster packed the courtroom.
“You were the man that shot my father, my lifeline, and murdered him
in cold blood in his car,” Debbie Zottola told Ross in court before the
sentencing.
“You killed me, you killed his grandchildren, especially my two sons
who were old enough to understand every single thing that was
happening.”
She said her dad “had to live in fear” as he was hunted down by assassins and that “the last year of his life was pure torture.”
During Zottola’s six-week trial,
prosecutors said he hatched the assassination plan with the help of
bumbling Bloods gang leader Bushawn Shelton, with whom he exchanged
hundreds of coded text messages about the slaying.
The hit came after six failed attempts to take out the mobster over
nearly a year, along with his elder son, Salvatore, who escaped alive.
Sally Daz was an associate of the Bonanno crime family, one of the
so-called “Five Families” that control organized crime in New York City.
His work for the mob included collecting money from illegal “Joker
Poker” gambling machines at bars and “number holes” in the Bronx — and
paying Bonanno boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano and Lucchese
family mobster sprotection money, Salvatore Zottola testified during the
trial.
Over decades, heinvested the cash he made running
the gambling machines into building a lucrative real estate fortune that
his son desperately wanted, according to prosecutors.
“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,” Breon Peace, United States
Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said Friday.
“For sentencing his father to a violent death, Anthony Zottola and
his co-defendant will spend the rest of their lives in prison.”Zottola
and Ross were both convicted of murder-for-hire, conspiracy to commit
murder-for-hire, and firearms offenses.
On Friday, Zatolla’s lawyer, Ilana Haramati, asked for leniency, calling him a family man in poor health.
“A life sentence bears a really awful finality,” Haramati said. “He
just wants to continue to be a source of support to his children as much
as he can.”
The killer boss of the Bonanno crime family hid his face and refused to
answer Daily News questions after he was released on a $500,000 bond
Tuesday.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn accused Michael “The Nose” Mancuso, 67,
of associating with members of organized crime, violating the terms of
his supervised release, which came after served 15 years in prison for
his role in the 2004 death of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo.
“Don’t you have something better to do?” asked a woman standing with
Mancuso in a park across from the courthouse when a reporter with The
News tried Tuesday to question the Bonanno head honcho.
“Go cure cancer,” she added.
Mancuso did not respond to questions and hid his face behind his black leather coat.
He was not much more loquacious in court, responding only “deny” when
asked by Judge James Cho whether the allegations that he had associated
with other members of La Cosa Nostra were true.
Mancuso got caught up twice in federal wiretaps related to a separate investigation of the Colombo crime family, which resulted in 14 arrests, a law enforcement source told The News.
The 67-year-old Bonanno skipper has been out of prison for nearly three
years after serving his 15-year stretch for helping carry out former
Bonanno boss Vincent Basciano’s order to kill Pizzolo, who had botched a
construction project for Basciano.
The hit man who carried out the killing, Anthony "Ace" Aiello, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a 30-year minimum term.
The feds say he twice violated the terms of his supervised release — in
Aug. 2020 and again in June 2021 — by associating with organized crime
figures.
Law enforcement officials filed a petition charging him with the
violations on March 9, two days before his supervised release term was
to expire.
Michael Mancuso, the reputed boss of the Bonanno crime family.
Associating with organized crime — though it violates the terms of his
supervised release — is nothing new for Mancuso. He was already running the Bonanno family while locked up with five years left on his federal sentence, sources told The News in 2013.
Mancuso also served a ten-year state sentence for fatally shooting his wife in The Bronx in 1984.
He sat in court during the hearing Tuesday with his arm around the woman who snapped at the reporter.
His wife and two daughters signed onto his bond.
Mancuso’s attorney, Stacey Richman, declined to comment.
A wiseguy’s son paid more than $200,000 to have his dad whacked in a McDonald’s drive-thru in The Bronx — and also ordered a botched hit on his own brother, federal authorities in Brooklyn said Tuesday.
Anthony Zottola Sr. , 41, potentially faces a death sentence for the
alleged patricide of reputed Bonanno crime family associate Sylvester
“Sally Daz” Zottola, 71, who was gunned down while waiting for a
take-out cup of coffee last year.
Anthony’s stunning indictment followed the arrests of several reputed
Bloods street gang members, including ex-con Bushawn “Shelz” Shelton,
who Anthony is accused of hiring to organize the Oct. 4 rub-out.
Court papers say that Anthony began scheming against his dad more
than a year before the assassination, which capped a “series of violent
attacks and attempts on his life” and that of Anthony’s older brother.
Salvatore Zottola, 42, was shot and critically wounded outside the
family’s sprawling waterfront compound in Locust Point on July 11,
during what the feds have previously described as an attempt to “lure
out” his dad.
Anthony was charged with murder-for-hire conspiracy, unlawful use and
possession of firearms and causing death through use of a firearm.
Prosecutors allege that text messages Anthony sent Shelton, 35, are proof of his “position at the helm of this sinister plot.”
One particularly chilling text shows the two men communicating in
movie-style code on Nov. 26, 2017, about 45 minutes after Sylvester
narrowly escaped death when his car was forced over by a dark van and a
man in a mask got out and pointed a gun at him, the feds said.
Authorities later found the van, with the mask inside, and used DNA testing to tie it to Shelton, court papers say.
In one message, Shelton wrote, “The star stormed off the set and I
think it spooked him,” prompting Anthony to allegedly write back, “That
is why we need to get to the final secen (sic) before The star doesn’t
come back,” the feds said.
“I need this bad…because I can see the film taking a twist,” Anthony allegedly added.
“Today was supposed to be the end until the actor wanted to do his
own stunts and throw it in reverse in the middle of shooting a scene and
drive in the opposite direction,” Shelton allegedly wrote.
“Ok. But we can still do the end I hope,” Anthony allegedly replied.
Prosecutors didn’t reveal a motive but law-enforcement sources said
Anthony wanted control of his dad’s illegal gambling operation, which
involved “Joker Poker” video games.
“It looks like it was over the family business — the Joker Poker
machines — and the son was looking to take over,” a source said.
A source also described Sally Daz as “a stubborn old guy who wouldn’t give up his business.”
Before zeroing in on Anthony, investigators suspected that the old man had been targeted by rival Albanian gangsters.
Sources said Sylvester Zottola was formerly associated with Bonanno
boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano, who’s serving a life sentence
for the 2004 murder of renegade underling Randolph Pizzolo.
Following Basciano’s 2011 conviction, sources said, Sylvester began
reporting to acting Bonanno boss Joseph “Joe C” Cammarano, who beat the
rap in an extortion and racketeering case earlier this year.
Neither Anthony nor Salvatore Zottola are known to have mob ties, and
they’re believed to have been “just living off the father,” a source
said.
Cammarano’s acquittal came after a defense lawyer memorably told
jurors not to convict him just for looking like he “stepped out of a
central casting in a mob movie.”
Salvatore Zottola was among the spectators who watched as Anthony,
and accused accomplices Jason “Stacks” Cummings, 31, Alfred “Aloe”
Lopez, 36 and Julian “Bizzy” Snipe, 32, pleaded not guilty.
A neighbor in Locust Point expressed shock over Zottola’s arrest and likened it to a classic mob movie.
“I know it happened in ‘Godfather II’, but I still don’t believe it,”
said the man, who declined to give his name. “I never liked that part
where he had his brother shot in the boat.”
Sylvester was killed inside an Acura SUV that was boxed in by other
vehicles outside the McDonald’s at Webster Avenue and Belmont Street.
Court papers say the shooter, who wore a hooded sweatshirt, opened
fire through one of the SUV’s windows, then hopped into a waiting car
driven by Lopez.
Evidence tying Anthony to the slaying includes communications with
Shelton before and after the hit, with Anthony sending a coded text
assuring payment that said “I have the cases of water in a day or so.”
A photo shot a day after the hit and recovered from one of Shelton’s
cell phones shows “a cardboard box of bottled water, as well as over
$200,000 in banded currency,” court papers say.
Two days later, Anthony sent Shelton a text that said, “All good. Did you drink the water. Was it the right one.”
“Definitely was the right one thanks I was able to water the plants and get some of them squared away,” Shelton said.
Anthony’s wife burst into sobs as Judge Roanne Mann refused to
release him on their Larchmont home, saying: “He was not the one who
fired the weapon but he was the one who called the shots.”
Zottola wiped away tears as he was led out of the courtroom and the
brother he’s accused of trying to have whacked broke down in sobs in the
hallway.
A former mob lawyer who turned canary
against Bonanno crime family boss Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano was
sentenced Friday to time served — three days — by the same judge
Basciano once tried to have killed.
Defendant Thomas Lee cried and hugged his attorney after Brooklyn
federal court Justice Nicholas Garaufis handed down the sentence.
“Good luck, and have a good life,” Garaufis told Lee, nearly 14 years
after the defendant took the stand against Basciano to finger him for
racketeering, including acts of murder, murder conspiracy, and
solicitation of murder.
Lee admitted to abusing his power as a lawyer to pass messages from acting boss Basciano to the family’s incarcerated official head, Joseph Massino, in 2004 regarding a murder plot.
“I don’t blame my upbringing, I don’t blame my neighborhood, I don’t
blame my father’s drug addiction,” Lee told the court Friday,
referencing his mob-tinged childhood in The Bronx. “The most important
thing is that I’ve broken the cycle.
“The self-inflicted wounds are the worst,” the 51-year-old said. “And
the difficulty is, the story I injected myself into is folk, it’s
created.”
Lee spent three days in jail, just long enough to be arraigned, in
2005 before being set free on $2 million bond and heading straight into
the federal Witness Protection Program, where he remains.
While he had faced between 121 to 151 months behind bars following
his guilty plea to a charge of racketeering, prosecutors went to bat for
him in a letter to Garaufis, given his testimony at multiple trials.
The judge Friday thanked prosecutor Amy Busa for the submission,
which he described as “all these many years later, bringing back these
memories I had hoped to forget.”
Garaufis was named on a 2006 hand-written hit-list Basciano passed off behind bars while he was awaiting retrial, after a jury deadlocked on his first trial.
Basciano was eventually convicted on racketeering charges, including
acts of murder and murder conspiracy, and is serving life in prison.
Lee declined to comment through his lawyer, Joel Cohen, though the attorney lauded the sentence.
“I think he earned the sentence he got,” Cohen said.
A
gangster known as “Taliban” was busted for his role in the October
execution of a veteran Mafia associate at a McDonald’s drive-thru — and a
botched hit three months earlier on his son, authorities said Friday.
Herman "Taliban" Blanco, 33, of the Bronx, was arraigned Friday afternoon in
Brooklyn Federal Court over his role in the Oct. 4 killing of Sylvester "Sally Daz" Zottola and the attempted slaying of Salvatore Zottola — a
hit ordered in an effort to “lure out” the father, according to a
federal criminal complaint.
The
71-year-old old victim, a longtime organized crime figure in the Bronx,
was waiting for a cup of coffee at the fast-food restaurant when he was
shot repeatedly by a gunman who fled on foot. Zottola was died at the
scene.
Brooklyn
gangbanger Bushawn "Shelz" Shelton, 34, was arrested last month for his
alleged role in the two Zottola shootings. The complaint against Blanco
was filed by an FBI agent assigned to a squad investigating Balkan and
Middle Eastern organized crime.
A
cooperating federal witness told authorities that Blanco approached him
in the spring of this year offering cash for the killing of “John Doe
#1,” the six-page complaint recounted.
“Shelton later informed the (witness) … that the purpose of killing John Doe #1 was to lure out Zottola,” the complaint alleged.
Son
Salvatore Zottola, 41, though not identified by name in court papers,
survived a July 11 murder attempt outside his waterfront home in the
Bronx.
Court
papers identified the elder Zottola as a Lucchese family associate with
ties to now-imprisoned ex-Bonanno family boss Vincent "Vinnie Gorgeous"
Basciano.
Authorities said telephone records indicated Blanco and Shelton shared frequent cell phone chats between March and October 2018.
And
the cooperating witness in the case actually went with the two suspects
to pick up a gun before driving to Salvatore Zottola’s home to lie in
wait for the target. The would-be victim never appeared that day, the
complaint said.
His
father similarly escaped death in multiple threatening incidents over
the last year, including a December 2017 attack inside his Bronx
apartment where three masked invaders stabbed Sylvester Zottola
repeatedly in the neck and chest.
Shelton’s wife Takeisha, in court papers filed Tuesday, sought to quash a subpoena seeking her to testify against her husband.
“As
the law … makes clear, Ms. Shelton cannot be compelled to offer
evidence against her husband in a criminal proceeding,” wrote her
attorney Florian Miedel.
Prosecutors
suggested, without identifying another suspect, that they might ask Ms.
Shelton to testify against another target of the probe.
Blanco, described by prosecutors as a known Bloods member, is being held without bail.
He
is also on parole for an assault and burglary conviction. Assistant
U.S. Attorney Lindsay Gerdes said Blanco was released from prison last
year after serving 12 years.
When
investigators found $45,000 in cash inside the Brooklyn apartment of a
man they suspected might be linked to last week’s killing of a reputed
mobster, the man’s grandmother offered an explanation.
The money had turned up in the last week, she told investigators, and it came from her grandson’s T-shirt business.
Federal
prosecutors had a different theory: The man, Bushawn Shelton, 34, was a
high-ranking member of the Bloods street gang, and had taken part in a
plot to kill Sylvester and Salvatore Zottola, a father and son who were
reputed to be associates of the Bonanno crime family.
On
Thursday, Mr. Shelton, who is known as “Shelz,” was arrested and
charged in United States District Court in Brooklyn with federal
conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and brandishing a firearm.
A law enforcement source confirmed Mr. Shelton is suspected in connection with the murder of Sylvester Zottola, 71, who was gunned down outside
a Bronx McDonald’s last week, even though he was not specifically
charged with that crime. Mr. Zottola’s son, Salvatore, 41, also barely
escaped a botched attempt on his life earlier this year.
Prosecutors
said the search executed at Mr. Shelton’s home earlier on Thursday not
only uncovered the $45,000 in bills but also loaded firearms.
The
charges against Mr. Shelton signaled a break for investigators in a
frustrating case, though it still left many questions unanswered. For
nearly a year, Mr. Zottola and his son had been hunted by shadowy
assassins on the streets of the Bronx. It was a pursuit law enforcement
officials suspected stemmed from the pair’s well-documented connections
to New York’s organized crime families.
A
criminal complaint said Mr. Shelton was part of a murder-for-hire plot
targeting the Zottolas over a nearly five-month period ending with a
botched July 11 assassination attempt against the younger Zottola
outside of the family’s compound in the Throgs Neck neighborhood.
Neither Zottola is named in the complaint, but a law enforcement
official confirmed the anonymous John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 cited in the
document refer to them.
Mr.
Shelton is accused of paying another man to try to kill the pair and
providing him with getaway drivers and firearms to carry out the plot.
But the hired hitman was arrested, pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire and
agreed to cooperate with federal investigators against Mr. Shelton, the
complaint said.
Who
initially hired Mr. Shelton, and why they wanted the Zottolas dead,
remains a mystery. Court documents make no mention of a motive. Sworn
testimony indicates the case was investigated by the F.B.I.’s Balkan and
Middle Eastern organized crime squad, bolstering theories that the
Zottolas may have somehow crossed an Albanian organized crime group.
For
years, the Zottolas fostered close ties to the Luchese and Bonanno
crime families, providing and maintaining electronic gambling machines
for mob-controlled hubs in New Jersey.
The
elder Mr. Zottola had a particularly close relationship with Vincent J.
Basciano, who led the Bonanno crime family in the early 2000s before being convicted of racketeering and murder.
At the turn of the millennium, Sylvester Zottola allowed Mr. Basciano’s
girlfriend, Debra Kalb, to live at his compound in the Bronx, according
to court transcripts.
But the elder
Mr. Zottola’s ties to organized crime extended beyond the Bonanno
family. He had a long history with the Lucheses, according to an
investigator who handles Mafia inquiries but was not involved in the
murder case, and an F.B.I. report that summarizes the agency’s
debriefing of a high-ranking Bonanno crime family figure.
The
investigator said Mr. Zottola also had ties to the Genovese crime
family: He had grown up with Pasquale Falcetti, a soldier from the
Genovese family’s East Harlem crew who was known as “The Clubber.”
Mr. Shelton is expected to appear in court for a detention hearing on Friday.
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.”
A
reputed Bonnano crime family associate survived two bullets in a
botched mob hit Wednesday outside his $2 million Bronx home barely a
month after his father was targeted just 4 miles away, authorities said.
Alleged
mobster Salvatore "Sally Daz" Zottola was leaving his home on Tierney
Place in Throggs Neck when he was ambushed by a lone shooter at 6:40
a.m.
Zottola,
41, was hospitalized in serious but stable condition after he was shot
in the chest and right hand. He also suffered a graze wound to the head,
authorities said.
It
was unclear if the shooting was related to a June 12 incident where
Zottola’s dad Sylvester, 71, was arrested after squeezing off several
shots at a man who pulled a gun on him around 7:30 a.m. outside his
Bronx residence. Sylvester Zottola was arrested for weapons possession,
reckless endangerment and other charges, and did not have a permit for
the gun.
The
family patriarch, identified in court papers as a Lucchese family
associate, also survived a Dec. 27, 2017, stabbing in the neck and back
when he walked into his home to find three people burglarizing the
place.
Both
father and son were affiliated with former Bonanno family boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano until the gangster was jailed for life after a
2007 murder conviction.
The
gunman who targeted Salvatore Zottola fired four shots before climbing
into a waiting getaway car and fleeing. No arrests were made in the
shooting of the younger Zottola nor in either of the violent incidents
with his dad.
“We
want to thank everyone for their kind words, but you can go f---
yourself,” a Zottola family member said outside the Jacobi Medical
Center, where Salvatore was hospitalized.
Salvatore
Zottola and his relatives apparently own three pricey four-story homes
on the street overlooking the water on the eastern tip of the Bronx. One
of the homes near the Locust Point Marina is marked with a sign reading
“Zottola Court.”
Salvatore "Sally Daz" Zottola (left) sits with Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano
before Basciano was sent up the river for life in 2007.
The
street outside bore signs of the investigation, including discarded
blue surgical gloves and small orange cones marking recovered shell
casings. A folded yellow towel rested on the ground nearby.
Zottola was apparently home alone while his wife and their two children were down at the Jersey Shore, when the gunfire erupted.
Neighbor
Joe Peloso, 78, described the younger Zottola and his relatives as good
neighbors who often hosted parties for local residents in their
beachfront backyard with its pier and his Jet Skis.
Back
in 1999, Salvatore Zottola allowed Basciano’s mistress to stay in one
of his Bronx homes — unaware a mob investigator had just moved in across
the street and was monitoring his moves. The elder Zottola partnered
with the owner of the Hello Gorgeous hair salon in running lucrative
Joker Poker machines, court documents showed.
A lawyer for the Bonanno crime family’s imprisoned ex-boss is throwing the book at a pair of federal judges.
Mobster Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano’s murder and racketeering
convictions deserve another look because of a conflict of interest
between the jurists and a Connecticut law professor-turned-author, the
boss’ lawyer claims.
“The fact that Mr. Basciano is an alleged ‘Mafioso’ doesn’t mean that
the courts get to play fast and loose with the law and its duty to
remain impartial,” charged defense attorney Anthony DiPietro.
The lawyer asserted in court papers that U.S. District Court of Appeals
Judge Reena Raggi and Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis provided
special treatment to writer Leonard Orland.
The author, while covering Basciano’s death penalty case for his 2015
book “Capital Punishment Trials of Mafia Murderers, engaged in
“off-the-record contact” with both judges.
DePietro argues the judges should have avoided a book “detrimental to
(Basciano) and his case generally, as explicitly evidenced by its title
labeling him a ‘Mafia Murderer.’”
Orland instead dedicated his 304-page effort to the helpful judges.
Photos of Raggi and Garaufis appeared above the Biblical passage
“Justice, justice shall you pursue.”
Raggi was part of a three-judge panel that ruled against the gangster
this past Nov. 28. And Garaufis presided over Basciano’s 2011 death
penalty trial while assisting Orland.
Basciano, 58, is serving a life sentence after his convictions for
racketeering and a pair of mob killings. The former owner of the Hello
Gorgeous hair salon remains locked up at the high security Big Sandy
prison in Inez, Ky.
The lawyer asserted in court papers that Brooklyn Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis provided special treatment to writer Leonard Orland.
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals turned down DiPietro’s appeal last
month in a terse decision: “It is hereby ordered, that the motion is
denied.”
But the lawyer said he intended to push for a Supreme Court review of
the ruling and seek other avenues to press the conflict issue.
“The judges’ working alliance with (Orland) ... and their support of a
publication that is inherently antagonistic to petitioner and his quest
to overturn his conviction ... presents an appearance of impropriety,”
wrote DiPietro in his appeal.
“Mr. Orland explains that he engaged in with both judges ... and that
they provided information and assistance,” the attorney continued.
The book dealt specifically with the Basciano trial and the earlier
death penalty case involving Bonanno family hitman Thomas “Tommy Karate”
Pitera.
The U.S. Attorney’s office in Brooklyn had no comment on the legal efforts to overturn the convictions.
In 2012, the court of appeals rejected Basciano’s appeal for the
shotgun murder of Frank Santoro on a Bronx street. He was also convicted
for orchestrating the 2004 murder of mob associate Randolph Pizzolo.
The mob boss had previously alleged that Garaufis was biased against
him because the gangster was charged with plotting to kill the judge.
Joe Barone closes his eyes in a bedroom far from home and falls into a dream.
The dark-haired ex-FBI informant sits inside an Italian restaurant,
surrounded by pals from the Bonanno crime family. Someone asks Barone to
sing a song, like he did in the old days.
It feels good. Until it all goes bad.
“The next part of the dream, a guy — I think his name is Anthony — is
shutting all the doors,” the mob expatriate recounts. “And he says ‘Oh,
they found out you’re here, Joey. There’s lines out the door, waiting to
kill you.’”
Life isn’t much better for Barone, 56, when his eyes are open.
The second-generation gangster is still waging the city’s
longest-running mob war, a legal battle with the FBI that enters its
ninth frustrating year this month.
“I feel like that movie, ‘The Never Ending Story,’” says Barone, his
accent pure New York despite a move to a safer, undisclosed location.
“It’s all this legal mumbo-jumbo,” he continues. “I try to put up a
good face, to be tough and strong. But it’s hard. I’m one man against
the federal government.”
The latest legal skirmish brings lawyers for the government and Barone
before the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Jan. 24 oral arguments.
Barone is suing the FBI and his old handlers, accusing the feds of
throwing him to the wolves after his Jan. 9, 2009, arrest in a $1
million murder-for-hire plot.
The plaintiff, who spent 18 hazardous years as a confidential
informant, hopes for a ruling that would lead to a trial. Government
lawyers will argue for a dismissal, alleging Barone went rogue on the
FBI.
Barone's trial on the cover of the Daily News
Barone maintains his role in the proposed slaying was all in a day’s
undercover work. A Manhattan federal jury agreed, acquitting him after
two days of deliberations in July 2010.
He now seeks unspecified civil damages, accusing the feds of
withholding “key exculpatory evidence,” outing him as an informant and
inflicting emotional distress.
The fight has already cost the man known as “JB” more than $400,000 in
legal fees, his suburban Westchester County home, $86,000 pilfered by a
since-disbarred lawyer — and his marriage.
“I’ve been floating around now for almost eight years — in hiding,
living where I’m living, divorced,” the former Bonnano associate told
the Daily News.
Barone’s new world is a deadly no-made man’s land — spurned by his old
FBI pals, and fearful of lethal mob payback. He’s sadly familiar with
the latter process.
It was back in 1991 when Barone, reeling from the Genovese family’s murder of his mobbed-up dad, flipped and joined the feds.
There’s little dispute about his effectiveness as an FBI mole. His
undercover work lasted three times as long as the six-year mob stint by
renowned FBI agent Joe “Donnie Brasco” Pistone .
A December 2005 FBI document praised Barone for his work identifying 48 “subjects of interest” and solving three homicides.
Barone even spared the lives of a federal judge and a federal
prosecutor by exposing a mob murder plot against the pair — implicating
Bonanno family boss Vincent "Vinny Gorgeous" Basciano.
“He was a gold mine,” said his former attorney, Jose Muniz, at Barone’s trial.
Life isn’t much better for Barone, 56, when his eyes are open.
And yet Barone somehow landed on the wrong side of the law.
In two particularly bizarre twists, he was ratted out by an NYPD snitch
— and arrested by agents from the FBI, his employers for nearly two
decades.
He was busted on a Friday afternoon after returning home from grocery
shopping with his girlfriend. Barone then spent 16 nerve-wracking months
in prison as the Metropolitan Detention Center buzzed with jailhouse
threats against the rat in their midst.
His long-ago acquittal doesn’t feel much like a win anymore.
“I got my day in court, to save my life, to beat the charges that were
lied about me,” Barone said as the anniversary of his arrest approached.
“But because of the way it had to take place, my life got ruined. Why
are they fighting me so hard? I’m just one little guy against the whole
big government.”
While Barone’s appeal is fueled by emotion, the government’s court filings rely on legalese.
“In Barone’s underlying criminal case, the government gathered
substantial evidence of Barone’s involvement in the actus reus elements
of the murder for hire scheme with which he was charged,” read one
recent government filing.
The feds further contend that Barone, despite his long undercover run,
lacked the authority to conspire with the other informant — and was
required to promptly report any details about possible crimes.
Despite all he’s lost, Barone clings to one thing: Hope that another jury can hear his story.
“That’s all I’m looking for, to get my fair share at trial,” he said. “Why can’t I get my day in court?”
Wiseguy Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous” Basciano has filed yet another
appeal of his life sentence for the 2004 murder of a renegade underling.
Citing ineffective counsel, the ex-mob boss wants a federal judge to
toss his conviction and sentence for the murder of Bonanno associate
Randolph Pizzolo.
An appeals court last upheld his conviction in 2012., after Basciano —
known for his immaculate suits and coiffed hair — failed to argue that
prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence.
The 56-year-old was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, murder
in aid of racketeering, and an illegal gun charge in 2011, yet managed
to dodge the death penalty.
Prosecutors said he orchestrated the hit because Pizzolo was considered reckless and disobedient.
Basciano is also serving a second life sentence for the 2001 killing of Frank Santoro.
A Brooklyn federal judge rejected the bail bid of "Goodfellas" gangster
Vinny Asaro Thursday, days after the feds accused the aging mobster of
trying to arrange the murder of a prosecutor on his arson case.
Judge Allyne Ross brushed off Asaro's $2 million bail package, saying
the charges — having a car torched that cut in his traffic lane — and
the new claims of a rub-out all combined to show "just how volatile,
dangerous and violent the defendant remains."
Asaro denied making any threats. But Ross said the fact that
authorities even had to investigate the incident showed there were
“credible threats warranting a response.”
The judge said it made no difference if the 82-year Bonanno capo had
health problems, as the defense argued. The high-ranking gangster only
had to communicate his intentions to others in order to put people at
risk, Ross said.
In 2015, Asaro was acquitted on charges that he was involved in the
1978 Luftansa heist immortalized in the 1990 gangland opus "Goodfellas."
But prosecutors indicted Asaro in March for having a car charred by
mobster minions in 2012 when the driver cut in his lane. They nabbed
him, plus six others who were accused of other crimes like a bank
robbery and jewelry store stick-ups.
Asaro was held without bail when arrested on the new case.
And that's when prosecutors said an inmate passing through the Metropolitan Detention Center heard the alleged threats.
"We need to handle this and do something about this b---h," Asaro
allegedly told another defendant in his case. According to sources, the
person referred to is Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicole Argentieri, who
wasn't at Thursday's court clash.
Another time, Asaro allegedly said, "We need to do something about this
b---h, and not f--k it up like Vinny. We need to handle this."
"Vinny," according to the prosecution, is the onetime acting Bonanno
boss Vincent Basciano who tried to get the prosecutor on his case
whacked.
On Tuesday, Asaro's lawyer, Elizabeth Macedonio, said her client
"adamantly denies" the allegations he was putting out any sort of hit
request.
And even at the very best, Macedonio said this was "an angry,
82-year-old man sitting in prison lamenting he was back in prison" in
the sights of the same government team that came at him in the Luftansa
case.
Macedonio said she's had hundreds of defense clients through the years who've complained about the prosecutors on their case.
There was "nothing special except for the fact that the government is going after Mr. Asaro yet again."
The murder threat investigation turned up zilch, Macedonio said, noting
authorities found no plans or anything in visitor logs and recorded
calls.
She noted Asaro was thrown in the special housing during the
investigation — but now he's back in general jail population with the
other reputed Bonanno members and associates.
Asaro posed no danger to the community, she said. He's been minding his
business since his 2015 acquittal, Macedonio said. The old-timer's been
acting like any other old-timer — "cooking dinner, eating dinner,
enjoying his family."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith Edelman said Asaro was doing more making
blustery chit chat behind bars. He made "multiple, specific serious
threats regarding a prosecutor," Edelman said.
In Asaro's world, phrases like "do something" and "handle this" were "specific words with specific meaning ... it’s murder."
Asaro's family and supporters blew him kisses and said "we love you" as
he was taken out of court. They declined to comment outside the
courtroom.
Macedonio told reporters she was "disappointed" the judge "relied on
the government's baseless allegations. Now we're going to focus on the
trial."
Asaro's trial is scheduled for August.
Aging Bonanno capo Vincent Asaro has been overheard on jailhouse
tapes threatening to whack his federal prosecutor, court papers say.
The 82-year-old Asaro told a fellow inmate he needed to take care of
his “bitch” prosecutor, Assistant US Attorney Nicole Argentieri,
according to newly filed documents.
“We need to do something about this bitch,” Asaro — who famously
dodged prison for his suspected role in the 1978 Lufthansa heist
immortalized in the film “Goodfellas” — said recently as he languished
as a guest of the state awaiting trial for a road rage-related arson.
Argentieri is one of three federal prosecutors working that case.
Asaro may have beaten the rap 18 months ago when federal
prosecutors put him on trial in the notorious JFK heist, but he’s now
accused of ordering henchman — including the namesake grandson of John Gotti — to torch the car of a driver who unwittingly cut him off.
“We need to handle this,” the elderly mafioso purportedly snarled
while holed up in the Manhattan Detention Complex on his new case. “And
not f–k up like Vinny.”
Prosecutors claim Asaro was referencing Vincent “Vinny Gorgeous”
Basciano, former acting boss of the Bonanno crime family. Basciano
currently is serving a life sentence for murder after a failed attempt
to rub out his own prosecutor, according to the same filing.
The letter detailing the threats follows an attempt by defense
attorney Elizabeth Macedonio to spring her elderly client on bond in his
2012 arson case.
Asaro was also allegedly overheard saying he would snuff out his “rat
cousin” Gaspare Valenti if he ever saw him again. Valenti, who is now
in the witness protection program, was a key witness in the Lufthansa
trial.
Macedonio did not return messages.
The conditions on 10 South are bleak. Its half-dozen cells are never dark and are perpetually monitored by cameras. The prisoners inside never go outdoors.
Most days, they get an hour to themselves in a tiny “recreation” room with a treadmill, a stationary bike, a television and a window offering fresh air and a view of Lower Manhattan. Many are not allowed to speak with one another, but then again they rarely come face to face.
As the most secure wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center, the federal jail in Manhattan, 10 South is so austere that a high-ranking mobster who spent several years there once described it as “a torture chamber.” The unit has housed some of the country’s most notorious defendants, from operatives for Al Qaeda to at least one notorious foreign arms dealer — all of whom were subjected to its harshness before they were convicted of a crime.
The most recent — and perhaps most renowned — prisoner of 10 South is Joaquín Guzmán Loera, the Mexican drug lord known as El Chapo. In January, Mr. Guzmán was abruptly flown on a Mexican police jet to an airport on Long Island, then driven to the jail in an armed caravan. Ever since, he has been protesting his conditions of confinement and has taken up an unlikely role as an advocate for prison reform. El Chapo at an undisclosed location as he was being extradited to the United States in January. Security is tight around the serial prison escapee.
In a series of court filings, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers have complained on his behalf that from the moment he arrived at 10 South, he has been locked in his cell for 23 hours a day, except for lawyer and court visits, and has been denied all contact with his family and the media. The lawyers claim that he is the most closely guarded inmate in the United States and that the terms of his imprisonment have hindered his ability to prepare for trial. Not only have they asked Judge Brian M. Cogan of Federal District Court in Brooklyn to loosen the restrictions he faces; they have also asked that a researcher from Amnesty International be allowed inside 10 South to investigate conditions.
It is a strange turn of events that Mr. Guzmán, a serial prison escapee who stands accused of killing thousands during Mexico’s bloody drug wars, has claimed the moral high ground as a critic of the penal system. After all, he twice broke out of high-security correctional facilities in Mexico — first in a laundry cart and then by way of a mile-long tunnel dug by confederates into the shower of his cell. Given his history, federal prosecutors have defended the restrictions as a necessary measure, arguing that Mr. Guzmán retains “unparalleled connections” to his associates in the Sinaloa drug cartel — and has a “proven history” of murdering his enemies even while under lock and key.
Though his environment is forbidding, some of the grievances he has lodged with jail officials — there have been at least 11 of them as of last month — have been decidedly small-bore. In one motion, Mr. Guzmán’s lawyers claimed that the tap water had disturbed his throat, prompting him to ask for bottled water. They also said their client briefly feared that he was hearing voices, though the government contends that he was merely picking up the sounds of a radio being played nearby.
That said, the restrictions in 10 South are so severe that loneliness seems to motivate some inmates to break the unit’s rules. One of those inmates, Oussama Kassir, once greeted a fellow Muslim prisoner in Arabic while being escorted down the hall “in the clutch of two prison guards,” according to an affidavit filed by his lawyer. For that infraction, Mr. Kassir lost his telephone privileges for four months.
The famously austere Metropolitan Correctional Center has housed some of the country’s most notorious defendants, from operatives for Al Qaeda to a notorious foreign arms dealer.
Mr. Kassir was on 10 South for a year and a half, starting in 2007, while awaiting trial on charges that he had tried to establish a jihadi training camp in Oregon. During that time, he also went on a hunger strike to protest his conditions, losing over 25 pounds. Jail officials eventually “began force-feeding Mr. Kassir, which caused him great pain,” his lawyer, Edgardo Ramos, wrote in the affidavit.
Few inmates have spent as much time on 10 South as Vincent Basciano, who prosecutors say is a former acting boss of the Bonanno crime family. According to his lawyer, Mathew J. Mari, Mr. Basciano once described 10 South as “a torture chamber that is a tool the government uses to try to make a defendant cooperate.” Currently serving life in prison on racketeering charges, Mr. Basciano was eventually moved from the solitary wing to the nation’s most secure federal prison, the so-called Supermax in Florence, Colo. He described the Supermax as “a five-star hotel compared to 10 South,” according to Mr. Mari.
The Bureau of Prisons refused to identify the inmates who are now housed at 10 South. But interviews with lawyers and a review of court documents indicate that Mr. Guzmán’s neighbors include Muhanad Mahmoud al-Farekh, a Texan who is accused of being a Qaeda commander and whom the government once considered killing with a drone strike in Pakistan; and Maalik Jones, a Maryland man accused of fighting alongside the Shabab militant group in Somalia.
Until last month, a Qaeda operative named Ibrahim Suleiman Adnan Adam Harun was also on 10 South. His behavior was loud and erratic and, according to his lawyers, he had a mental illness. He argued with himself frequently and vocally and at one point tried to knit what was described in court as a suit of armor out of milk cartons. Photo A police motorcade taking El Chapo from Manhattan to Brooklyn for a court appearance in February.
According to a psychologist who examined him, Mr. Harun slept on the floor of his cell to avoid his prison bedding, which the defendant claimed hindered his body “from recharging electrons.” Lawyers visiting their clients on 10 South have said they often heard a din emanating from one of the cells, which they believe to have been Mr. Harun’s.
The cells on 10 South are generally 17 by 8 feet. But prosecutors say that Mr. Guzmán has the largest cell on the wing and that prison officials have adequately addressed some of his complaints. For instance, he now receives six small bottles of water every two weeks, court papers say. The prosecutors also note that he has a radio and was permitted to buy a clock from the prison commissary. Though the clock was taken from him a few days after he bought it — “with no explanation and no refund,” according to his lawyers — he recently got it back.
As an added security measure, the government has denied Mr. Guzmán family visits, including from his wife, Emma Coronel Aispuro, a former beauty queen whose father, the authorities say, cultivated poppies and marijuana for one of her husband’s top lieutenants. His lawyers — currently, public defenders — claim that keeping Mr. Guzmán from his wife has infringed on his ability to seek advice as he decides whether to hire private counsel. The prosecution has, as well, sought to screen any non-Americans on Mr. Guzmán’s legal team, concerned that a spy for the cartel might infiltrate his defense. As for his request for an investigation by Amnesty International, the prosecutors recently asked Judge Cogan to deny it, saying that the group had “no oversight authority” over the prison and was “not a party to this prosecution.”
Even with these various restrictions, however, Mr. Guzmán has almost daily visits from a small army of lawyers, paralegals, investigators and interpreters — an unusual privilege for an inmate on 10 South. According to court papers, he spends an average of 21 hours a week with his defense team, suggesting that his isolation is considerably less severe than other prisoners’.
And yet, it would seem, the indignities of life behind bars have gotten under his skin. Last week, his lawyers filed a motion saying that although he is allowed to watch TV in the rec room, the set is not visible from the exercise bike, forcing him to choose between watching and working out. This, the lawyers noted, was one of the “nonsensical obstacles” that “further Mr. Guzmán’s sense of frustration and isolation.”
Nor is he permitted to choose the channel, since officials at 10 South have “imposed some sort of programming limitation” on Mr. Guzmán, his lawyers said. Among the few shows that Mr. Guzmán has been able to view is a “nature program about a rhinoceros” that, they said, has been “replayed numerous times.”
