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Anthony Zottola, age 44, of Larchmont, was convicted by a federal jury in Brooklyn Wednesday, Oct. 19, of murder-for-hire conspiracy in the October 2018 killing of 71-year-old Sylvester Zottola in the Bronx.
The man who Zottola hired to pull the trigger, 36-year-old Himen Ross, of the Bronx, was also convicted Wednesday following the pair’s six-week trial, according to the US Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District.
Zottola and Ross were additionally found guilty of causing the elder Zottola’s death through the use of a firearm and unlawful use and possession of firearms.
A third defendant, Alfred Lopez, was acquitted on all counts.
According to federal prosecutors, Zottola wanted to take control of his father’s vast real estate portfolio, which consisted of several multi-family rental properties valued at tens of millions of dollars.
Prior to the killing, he had helped manage his father’s business by maintaining properties, collecting rent, and helping to run A&S Maintenance, a company that was jointly owned by him and his brother, Salvatore Zottola.
In order to take over the family business, Zottola came up with a plan to kill both his father and brother, prosecutors argued. He hired co-conspirator Bushawn Shelton, who in turn recruited others to carry out the killings.
The group spent a year enacting a series of violent attacks on Sylvester and Salvatore Zottola, including a December 2017 home break-in in which three men struck Sylvester’s head with a gun, stabbed him multiple times, and slashed his throat. He ended up surviving the attack.
In July 2018, a gunman shot Salvatore Zottola in the head, chest, and hand in front of his home. He, too, survived the attempt on his life.
The group finally succeeded in taking the elder Zottola's life on Oct. 4, 2018, when a tracking device was placed on his car, allowing Ross to follow him to a McDonald’s on Webster Avenue in the Bronx, prosecutors said.
Zottola was fatally shot multiple times as he sat in his car in the restaurant’s drive-thru, waiting for a cup of coffee.
After the killing, prosecutors said Shelton and Zottola text one another, with Zottola being informed that his father had just been murdered.
“Can we party today or tomorrow?” Shelton texted Zottola, according to prosecutors.
Zottola then assured Shelton that his payment for carrying out the killing would be on its way.
“I have the cases of water in a day or so,” he reportedly said.
Investigators later recovered a photo from one of Shelton’s cell phones that showed a cardboard box of bottled waters containing $200,000 in cash.
“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks," US Attorney Breon Peace said.
"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."
Shelton pleaded guilty to murder-for-hire conspiracy and murder-for-hire in August 2022 and is currently awaiting sentencing.
Zottola and Ross each face a mandatory term of life in prison when they're sentenced in February 2023.
Four other defendants previously pleaded guilty in the case. They were identified as:
- Herman Blanco, age 37, of the Bronx
- Arthur Codner, age 34, of New Hampton
- Jason Cummings, age 34, of Brooklyn
- Julian Snipe, age 36, of the Bronx
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