Closing arguments set for 'Big Tony' in businessman's death
Source: Associated Press
Closing arguments set for 'Big Tony' in businessman's death
| June 29, 2015 | Updated: June 29, 2015 7:02am
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Closing arguments are set in the retrial of reputed mobster Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello in the 2001 slaying of a South Florida businessman in a power struggle over a gambling ship fleet.
Jurors will begin deliberations after Monday's arguments. Moscatiello could get the death penalty if convicted for the shooting death of Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, former SunCruz Casinos chief and founder of Miami Subs restaurants.
Moscatiello got a mistrial in 2013 when his attorney became ill. Anthony "Little Tony" Ferrari was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Prosecutors say Moscatiello is a member of New York's Gambino crime family who ordered Boulis killed by a mob hit man. Moscatiello did not testify in his own defense, but his lawyers sought to pin the slaying on Ferrari.
Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/Closing-arguments-set-for-Big-Tony-in-Boulis-6354858.php
[center]
Anthony "Big Tony" Moscatiello.
The departed, Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis. [/center]
Untangling a Lobbyist's Stake in a Casino Fleet
By Susan Schmidt and James V. Grimaldi
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, May 1, 2005
It was a gangland-style hit straight out of "Goodfellas."
A man in a BMW was driving down a quiet side street after an evening meeting at his Fort Lauderdale office when a car slowed to a stop in front of him. A second car boxed the BMW in from behind, then a dark Mustang appeared from the opposite direction. The Mustang's driver pulled alongside and pumped three hollow-point bullets into the BMW driver's chest.
The dead man was Konstantinos "Gus" Boulis, a volatile 51-year-old self-made millionaire, a Greek immigrant who had started as a dishwasher in Canada and ended up in Florida, where he built an empire of restaurants, hotels and cruise ships used for offshore casino gambling. Boulis's slaying, still unsolved four years later, reverberated all the way to Washington. Months earlier he had sold his fleet of casino ships to a partnership that included Republican superlobbyist Jack Abramoff.
Abramoff is best known as a target of a federal investigation in Washington into the tens of millions in fees he and a partner collected from casino-owning Indian tribes. But the wreckage from his brief and tumultuous time as owner of the gambling fleet threatens to overtake his Washington legal troubles.
Not long after Abramoff and his partners bought SunCruz Casinos in September 2000, the venture ran aground after a fistfight between two of the owners, allegations of mob influence, dueling lawsuits and, finally, Boulis's death on Feb. 6, 2001. Now, Abramoff is the target of a federal investigation into whether the casino ship deal involved bank fraud. According to court records, the SunCruz purchase hinged on a fake wire transfer for $23 million intended to persuade lenders to provide financing to Abramoff's group.
More:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/30/AR2005043001147.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
