(ReliableNews.org) – The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York won a guilty verdict in a case against an alleged mobster in 2018. The suspect was sentenced to 25 years in prison. The US Supreme Court has now agreed to hear an appeal for one of the charges in the case.
On June 3, the SCOTUS agreed to hear a case brought by Salvatore Delligatti, an alleged associate of the Genovese crime family, which is part of the mob (La Costra Nosa) network in New York City. The defendant is challenging a gun conviction that added five years to the sentence he received.
In 2014, Delligatti put together a plan to murder Joseph Bonelli, a man he believed was a “bully” and who was “terrorizing” a gas station the alleged mobster went to frequently. Bonelli also reportedly threatened the mob’s gambling business. Delligatti hired gang members who belong to the Crips gang and gave them a getaway car and a .38 revolver to carry out the killing. They were supposed to kill him at his home but didn’t when he showed up with another person.
Delligatti ordered the gang members to go back to Bonelli’s home and kill both him and the person he was with. They were going to go the next day but law enforcement officers received a tip about the plot. Officers were able to stop the gang members before they carried out the hit. A federal jury found Delligatti guilty of conspiring and attempting to commit murder in aid of racketeering, conspiring to commit murder-for-hire, and other racketeering-related offenses, including the gun crime. The offense prohibits people from possessing a firearm as part of a “crime of violence.”
Delligatti has asked the Supreme Court to reduce his sentence by five years because the murder plot failed. The defense team argues it can’t be considered a crime of violence because the murder never happened. Now the justices will determine whether an act of omission can disqualify an attempted murder as the underlying crime.
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