Bonanno Capo Nicholas "Nicky Cigars" Santora Died

Bonanno capo Nicholas Santora has died, we've heard...

Nicky Santora
He's been in decline -- bedridden and barely conscious -- and a lawsuit was filed on his behalf that alleges mistreatment by the NYC Department of Corrections while Santora was jailed at Rikers Island.

Anthony DeStefano reported in Newsday that "the 74 year-old Santora is lying in a Nassau County hospital bed, suffering from head injuries and barely conscious, allegedly because of negligent and malicious treatment by the New York City Department of Correction, according to a lawsuit filed earlier this week in Manhattan state court.


"Since 2013, Santora has remained held without bail in a city jail after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office indicted him and other reputed mobsters and associates for enterprise corruption. After a lengthy May trial, a Manhattan jury failed to reach a verdict and a judge declared a mistrial. Prosecutors want to retry the case.

"Over the year’s Santora has suffered from vertigo and it was during his incarceration that the problem became more serious, leading to falls in jail and even falls out of his wheelchair, said his daughter Gina Santora, with whom he had lived in Franklin Square before his recent hospitalization.

“By time he went to Rikers, my father fell over a dozen times,” Gina Santora, 45, said during a telephone interview. “My father has sustained multiple head injuries . . . I watched him deteriorate literally.”

“It is baffling how many times he fell before they realized ‘Hey this guy needs a wheelchair,’” she later said in an email.

Rego Park attorney Michael E. Talassazan filed the lawsuit on Nicholas Santora’s behalf. He told DeStefano that his client was finally granted bail after (a) mistrial in May 2016 but since has been mostly unconscious and unable to communicate. Gina Santora asked that the name of the hospital be kept confidential to protect her father’s privacy and also that her married name not be used for this story."


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