Opinion ID: 787685
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Appellants and Their Associates

Text: 5 Lombardi worked at a restaurant in Little Italy, where he became acquainted with several organized crime figures, including Joe Zito. Zito was a soldier in the Genovese Family and led a crew that reported to Rosario Gangi, a Genovese Family capo. Lombardi and D'Urso became members of Zito's crew and participants in Zito's loansharking activities. 6 Polito, a cousin of Lombardi, owned and operated a pizzeria in Queens. He was an inveterate gambler, who had borrowed money from Genovese Family loansharks, including Lombardi and D'Urso, and used the borrowed funds to pay his gambling debts. Zito would dispense money to Lombardi, who would loan some of it out and then pass the rest along to D'Urso, who then would loan it out to Polito, among others. Eventually, Salvatore Aparo, the acting capo to whom Zito reported after Gangi went to prison, began dispensing money directly to D'Urso for him to loan out. In addition to being a loansharking customer of Lombardi and D'Urso, Polito was on record with Zito because Zito had helped Polito with his gambling debts. By 1993, Polito owed hundreds of thousands of dollars to various loansharks, including approximately $70,000 to D'Urso. 7 Polito, D'Urso, and Lombardi regularly played cards at D'Urso's social club in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and the three became close friends. Fortunato, another close friend of Polito, was one of the founders of Fortunato Brothers Bakery, a well-known Italian bakery in Williamsburg. Fortunato's involvement in Genovese Family affairs was largely limited to playing in high-stakes card games with Polito, Lombardi, and D'Urso at a social club located on Mulberry Street in Manhattan that was operated by Genovese Family soldier Tommy Cestaro. Lombardi had provided the necessary introductions to permit Polito and Fortunato to attend this social club. Historically, D'Urso had a poor personal relationship with Fortunato, a contemporary of D'Urso's father, and viewed Fortunato as arrogant. On several occasions, D'Urso had physically assaulted Fortunato over remarks that he had made that D'Urso found offensive. Nevertheless, D'Urso and Fortunato continued to see each other at card games frequented by Polito.