Bloods, Mickey D's, and the Mob

Murder makes for strange bedfellows. Right now in the Brooklyn Federal Detention Center, mixed among the kingpins and scammers, there is a surprising set of suspects ensnared in a particularly dark & tangled web of Mafia intrigue, street gangs, and Family Fueding.One afternoon in October of 2018 shots rang out in the driver through line of a Bronx McDonalds. 71 year old Sylvester Zottola, alleged associate of the Bonanno Mafia family, had just ordered a medium coffee at the McDonald's drive-thru when his car was suddenly boxed in, a gunman jumped out, fired, and sent the old Italian to the big Olive Garden in the sky. The gunman was dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt and fled the scene in a gray vehicle, police told The News.Less than a week after the McDonald’s hit the case was broken wide open when the hitter, a guy named Herman Blanco, was arrested and promptly turned state’s evidence. The first piece of the puzzle Blanco revealed was the man who paid him, Bushawn “Shelz” Shelton, whom he alleged provided him with a driver and pistols to carry the murder out.When the Feds hit Shelz, a quote “high rank Blood gang member” from East New York, they 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.Shelton, 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.