Photo: U.S. Department of Justice
The son of a New York mobster gunned down in New York City in 2018 has been convicted of hiring a hitman to murder his father.
Following a six-week trial, a jury found Anthony Zottola, Sr., and Himen Ross guilty of hiring Bushawn Shelton to kill 71-year-old Sylvester Zottola. They also unsuccessfully tried to have Anthony's brother, Salvatore, killed.
Sylvester Zottola survived several assassination attempts before he was gunned down while getting coffee at a McDonald's drive-thru in the Bronx in October 2018.
Prosecutors said that Anthony plotted to kill his father and brother so he could take over the family's real estate business, which was worth tens of millions of dollars.
"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," United States Attorney Breon Peace said. "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. I thank our prosecutors, the FBI Special Agents, and NYPD detectives for their tremendous investigative work solving this cold-blooded crime and bringing the defendants to justice."