The racketeering conspiracy trial of
Anthony (right) and
Christopher Colombo, sons of slain crime boss
Joseph Colombo, will begin this week, according to
a story by Thomas Zambito of the New York Daily News.
The brothers are charged with running an offshoot of the
Colombo Crime Family that engaged in extortion and loansharking. Prosecutors say the Colombos were squeezed out of the Mafia clan that continues to bear their surname and started up an operation known as the
Colombo Brothers Crew.
In pretrial hearings, defense attorney Aaron Goldsmith asked that prosecutors be forbidden from mentioning the Mafia organization or Joseph Colombo's role in it. Goldsmith argued that such mentions would unfairly prejudice a jury. Prosecutors argued that the Colombo brothers themselves revealed their family connections in order to intimidate their victims.
With the approval of boss of bosses
Carlo Gambino, Joseph Colombo (left) took over the old Profaci family after the deaths of
Joseph Profaci and successor
Joseph Magliocco in the early 1960s. Colombo was a highly visible organizer of Italian unity causes and publicly insisted that he was being targeted by the FBI solely because of his ethnic background. It is believed that other crime bosses were alarmed at his courtship of the press and arranged for his assassination. Colombo was mortally wounded in a 1971 shooting. He remained in a coma until his death in 1978.
Related
MobNews post:
The racketeering conspiracy trial of Anthony (right) and Christopher Colombo, sons of slain crime boss Joseph Colombo, will begin this week, according to a story by Thomas Zambito of the New York Daily News.
The brothers are charged with running an offshoot of the Colombo Crime Family that engaged in extortion and loansharking. Prosecutors say the Colombos were squeezed out of the Mafia clan that continues to bear their surname and started up an operation known as the Colombo Brothers Crew.
In pretrial hearings, defense attorney Aaron Goldsmith asked that prosecutors be forbidden from mentioning the Mafia organization or Joseph Colombo's role in it. Goldsmith argued that such mentions would unfairly prejudice a jury. Prosecutors argued that the Colombo brothers themselves revealed their family connections in order to intimidate their victims.
With the approval of boss of bosses Carlo Gambino, Joseph Colombo (left) took over the old Profaci family after the deaths of Joseph Profaci and successor Joseph Magliocco in the early 1960s. Colombo was a highly visible organizer of Italian unity causes and publicly insisted that he was being targeted by the FBI solely because of his ethnic background. It is believed that other crime bosses were alarmed at his courtship of the press and arranged for his assassination. Colombo was mortally wounded in a 1971 shooting. He remained in a coma until his death in 1978.
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