A federal jury on Friday found Anthony Zottola, the 45-year-old murderous son of slain mobster Sylvester “Sally Daz” Zottola, guilty in October of orchestrating a plot to kill his father and try to murder his older brother by sending Bloods gang members to his relatives’ doorsteps for nearly a year before they finally succeeded in 2018. He’s facing a mandatory life sentence.
Zottola and Himen Ross, the killer, were both convicted of murder-for-hire. The federal prison system has no parole.
Sally Daz, who spent decades running illegal “Joker Poker” gambling machines across the Bronx, put his earnings into building a multi-million-dollar real estate empire — and the younger Zottola wanted it for himself, prosecutors established at his seven-week trial.
And that meant his father and older brother would need to go. He turned to the Bloods and, despite his instructions, they kept failing, and some of the would-be-killers balked before they did indeed get the kill.
All the while, Anthony Zottola and Bloods leader Bushawn Shelton traded texts for more than a year.
“One of the most tragic aspects of this tragic case is the way that Anthony Zottola weaponized his unsuspecting family members,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kayla Bensing wrote in an April 7 letter to the judge.
“He heard about upcoming sibling vacations, and then planned attacks around them. He listened as his father and brother recounted the attacks that had occurred on them, and then passed key details on to Shelton to better fine-tune the next attempt.”
Three of the nine defendants convicted in the murder plot have been sentenced. Herman “Taliban” Blanco and Jason Cummings, both Bloods members, received 22- and 17-year sentences respectively, while Crips member Brandon Peterson got 16 years. A fourth, Arthur Codner, is set to be sentenced Wednesday. All four pleaded guilty.
Shelton, who pleaded guilty in exchange for 35 to 40 years behind bars, has not yet been sentenced.
