Son sentenced to life for hiring hitman to kill father so he could take over real estate business

Even under the most brutal circumstances, this is not the way a succession is supposed to play out.

Anthony Zottola Sr., of Westchester, and Himen Ross, of the Bronx, were both sentenced in federal court to life in prison plus 112 years last week for their roles in the killing of Anthony’s father, 71-year-old Sylvester Zottola, in Anthony’s effort to take over the family’s residential real estate company, according to a Department of Justice press release.

Sylvester Zottola owned a residential real estate portfolio consisting of two-dozen multi-family rental and commercial properties — valued at tens of millions of dollars at the time of his death — which Anthony  Zottola and his brother Salvatore Zottola managed together.

Anthony Zottola, however, wanted the multimillion-dollar business for himself, so he hired Bushawn Shelton of Brooklyn to recruit hitmen to kill both his father and his brother.

Shelton hired Ross and several accomplices to shoot and kill 71-year-old Sylvester Zottola at a Bronx McDonald’s in October 2018. 

Sylvester’s killing took place after several failed attempts on his and Salvatore’s lives beginning in late 2017. The attempts included Sylvester being menaced at gunpoint by a masked person in November 2017; Sylvester being shot in the head, stabbed several times and having his throat slashed by three men who invaded his home in December 2017; and Salvatore being shot in the head, chest and hand in front of his home in July 2018. Both men survived those attacks.

The hitmen ultimately were able to track Sylvester to the Bronx McDonald’s by placing a tracking device on Sylvester’s car. Ross then shot Sylvester multiple times as Sylvester waited for a cup of coffee in the drive-thru lane.

Following the killing, Shelton and Anthony Zottola exchanged texts, including Shelton saying, “Can we party today or tomorrow?” Anthony replied that payment would be made later, saying “I have the cases of water in a day or so.” 

Authorities later recovered a photo on Shelton’s phone showing a box of bottle water and more than $200,000 in cash.

After a six-week trial, Anthony Salvatore and Ross were convicted of murder in October 2022. Their sentencing Friday included an additional 112 years in prison, reflecting Salvatore’s age when he was shot, 41, and Sylvester’s age, 71, when he was killed.

“Over the course of more than a year, the elderly victim, Sylvester Zottola, was stalked, beaten, and stabbed, never knowing who orchestrated the attacks,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in the press release. “It was his own son, who was so determined to control the family’s lucrative real estate business that he hired a gang of hitmen to murder his father.”

Shelton pleaded guilty to murder last August and is awaiting sentencing.  Co-conspirators Herman Blanco, Arthur Codner, Jason Cummings, and Branden Peterson each pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 240 months’ imprisonment, 228 months’ imprisonment, 204 months’ imprisonment, and 192 months’ imprisonment respectively.

“Zottola had not one, not two, but multiple chances to rethink his deadly intent to murder his own father. He and the others he recruited chose to continue with their savage plot and succeeded. Now, instead of living off his father’s millions, his only payday will be federal prison,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll said in a previous statement.

— Ted Glanzer