This Week In Gang Land
High Drama In Brooklyn Federal Court As FBI Agent Gives Dramatic Readings In The Sally Daz Murder Trial
It
could have been a couple of actors reading lines of dialogue from an
off-Broadway play.
Except the scene was Brooklyn Federal Court and the parts were being read by
an FBI agent seated on the witness stand and an
assistant U.S. attorney standing at the podium.
The dialogue wasn't written by a playwright. It came from numerous cryptic text messages that were exchanged by several men charged with a murder-for-hire plot against Bonanno crime family associate Sylvester (Sally Daz) Zottola and his son Salvatore.
After three weeks and testimony from 56 witnesses, the prosecution in the murder trial of Anthony Zottola, who is charged with killing his father and trying to kill his brother, has been tying up its case with dramatic readings of the texts to the jury. And to make sure the jurors catch the exact words, the texts have also been presented on video monitors as they were read aloud.
Defense Cries Foul Over Government Text Evidence; Judge Says It's All Good
Enough
already! That sums up the posture of attorneys for Anthony Zottola over the
brutal battering he got last week from testimony by FBI agent Michael Zoufal
who read aloud texts linking him to his father's killing and the shooting of
his brother. Even before agent Zoufal took the stand for the second day
yesterday, Zottola's defense team seemed to cry uncle about the day one
legal stomping the G-man had given their client in a filing to trial Judge
Hector Gonzalez.
Letter From Federal Prosecutor Wins Compassion For Genovese Wiseguy
With
the help of a federal prosecutor in Manhattan who had originally recommended
he serve five more years behind bars, Genovese wiseguy John (Johnny T)
Tortora has won a compassionate release from the Bureau of Prisons,
according to his lawyer.
