A pair of menacing Russian mobsters with a taste for arson and assault were convicted Tuesday of racketeering for their six-year Brooklyn reign of terror.
A Brooklyn Federal Court Jury returned its verdicts after the three-week trial of Leonid Gershman, 35, and Aleksey Tsvetkov, 39. The mobsters, who used their ill-gotten profits to lead a cozy life of leisure, will face life imprisonment at their upcoming sentencing.
The defendants, both of Brooklyn, profited from a wide-ranging 2011-2017 crime spree in the heavily-Russian Brighton Beach section, along with neighboring Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay — although their reach extended to Russia and Israel.
The duo’s violent and efficient methodology included “beatings in broad daylight and committing arson in the dark of night,” said Brooklyn Federal Prosecutor Richard Donoghue.
The pair hired two men to torch a Coney Island building that housed a competing high-stakes poker game — trapping a young boy inside the burning residence. The two were additionally found guilty of using a pistol to shatter the teeth of a man suspected of robbing their marijuana stash house.
The boy and a second building resident were pulled from the flames by the FDNY in spring 2016.
The defendants were “responsible for years of using intimidation, violence and their association with Russian organized crime to inflict crimes on our local communities,” said Donoghue.
The pair’s illegal incomes allowed the two to enjoy the high life, from $1,500 pairs of Yeezy sneakers and a $1,500 Hermes belt buckle to Piaget watches and a Porsche.
The jurors found the two suspects guilty of the predicate racketeering acts of illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion, arson and marijuana distribution.
According to authorities, Gershman reached out to Russian mobsters known as “Thieves in Law” to track down the father of a man who owed more than $40,000 to their crime syndicate.
The father, once located in Moscow, acknowledged that his son was living in Israel, where the thieves in law quickly tracked him down, Gershman said during a wiretapped phone call.
“The father, once located in Moscow, acknowledged that his son was living in Israel, where the thieves in law quickly tracked him down,…”
They’d better be Bolshevik Russian mobsters, then.
Otherwise, there just might be a problem with the jew mafia there.
“…..in the heavily-Russian Brighton Beach section, along with neighboring Coney Island and Sheepshead Bay — although their reach extended to Russia and Israel……”
What’s interesting here, Hatr are the local demographics. The Russians seem to have taken over a neighborhood (Brighton Beach…right near Coney Island) that was entirely Jewish in the past, and still is heavily populated by Jews, as if they were invited there, and now peacefully co-exist with them. This is also where Trump’s Dad built “Trump Village”, which is a series of huge apartment complexes filled with Jews.
If you walk along that section of the Boardwalk in the evening you’d think you were in Moscow. The Russkies brought a couple excellent restaurants to the Boardwalk. I had some awesome stuffed swordfish in one of them that I won’t forget. A lot of cute Russian girls hang out there looking for green card husbands.
Russians are sneaky, JR.
Especially the Bolshevik ones.
jews will be jews, regardless of their country of origin, however.