Contract Killer Flipped: Fed's Arrest High-Ranking Bloods Member For Murder-For-Hire Plot To Whack Bonanno Associate

 UPDATE TWO
The shooter was arrested, pleaded guilty and agreed to cooperate with federal investigators.

Bushawn Shelton


Bushawn Shelton, 34, an alleged high-ranking member of the Bloods allegedly paid another man to try to kill Sylvester and Salvatore Zottola.

He also furnished the contract killer with wheelmen and pistols to carry the murder out.



Shelton was a middleman however, according to reports. The motive and true force behind the murder remains a mystery.

Sworn testimony indicates the case was investigated by the F.B.I.’s Balkan and Middle Eastern organized crime squad, bolstering theories that the Zottolas may have somehow crossed an Albanian organized crime group.

For years, the Zottolas fostered close ties to the Luchese and Bonanno crime families, providing and maintaining electronic gambling machines for mob-controlled hubs in New Jersey. 

Shelton, participated in a plot to kill Sylvester and Salvatore Zottola, a father and son who were reputed to be associates of the Bonanno crime family.

That's federal prosecutors theory of last week's murder of Sylvester Zottola, 71, a reputed member of the Bonanno crime family, who was shot to death on Oct. 4 while in his car at a McDonald’s drive-through in the Bronx.

The Feds had found $45,000 in cash inside Shelton's Brooklyn apartment. His grandmother however claimed he'd earned the money via a T-shirt business he operated.


Yesterday, Shelton, aka“Shelz,” was arrested and charged in United States District Court in Brooklyn with federal conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and brandishing a firearm. He was not specifically charged with the murder of Zottola.

The victim's son, Salvatore, 41, survived a botched attempt on his life earlier this year.

Prosecutors said the search of Shelton’s home also resulted in the recovery of loaded firearms.

Shelton was part of a murder-for-hire plot targeting the Zottolas over a nearly five-month period ending with a botched July 11 assassination attempt against the younger Zottola outside of the family’s compound in the Throgs Neck neighborhood.

Neither Zottola is named in the complaint, but a law enforcement official confirmed the anonymous John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 cited in the document refer to the Zottolas.
Sworn testimony indicates the case was investigated by the F.B.I.’s Balkan and Middle Eastern organized crime squad, bolstering theories that the Zottolas may have somehow crossed an Albanian organized crime group.

The Zottolas fostered close ties to the Luchese and Bonanno crime families, providing and maintaining electronic gambling machines for mob-controlled hubs in New Jersey.  One court document described Sylvester Zotola as a Luchese associate. He also had been tightly aligned d with Vincent Basciano, Bonanno boss prior to his racketeering and murder conviction. He allowed Basciano’s girlfriend, Debra Kalb, to live at his compound in the Bronx, according to court transcripts.



But the elder Zottola’s ties to organized crime extended beyond the Bonanno family. According to the New York Times, "He had a long history with the Lucheses... and an F.B.I. report that summarizes the agency’s debriefing of a high-ranking Bonanno crime family figure.

"The investigator said Mr. Zottola also had ties to the Genovese crime family: He had grown up with Pasquale Falcetti, a soldier from the Genovese family’s East Harlem crew who was known as “The Clubber.”


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