PHOTO: Gennaro “Jerry” Bruno was nabbed in Las Vegas in October 2014. Courtesy of AboutTheMafia.com
By Michael V. Cusenza
A reputed associate of the Gambino Crime Family last Friday pleaded guilty to murdering an illicit business associate 14 years ago in Howard Beach and subsequently conspiring to prevent testimony in a grand jury investigation into the hit, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
Gennaro “Jerry” Bruno, 43, has admitted to killing Martin Bosshart, 30, on the night of Jan. 2, 2002, on 155th Avenue near Lahn Street.
According to court records, in 2001, Bruno’s criminal associate Bosshart initiated efforts to exclude one of Bruno’s coconspirators from a lucrative marijuana importation operation. On Jan. 2, 2002, Bruno and other members of his crew, according to the indictment, lured Bosshart to 155th Avenue just off the Belt Parkway, where Bruno allegedly pumped a single shot at point-blank range into the back of Bosshart’s head, killing him instantly. His body was recovered where he was shot.
Bruno, formerly of Ozone Park, evaded justice for years and conspired with other Gambino associates to obstruct an official grand jury proceeding into the Bosshart murder, all while continuing to participate in the money-making activities of the Gambino crime family, including drug trafficking and extortion.
As part of the alleged pattern of racketeering, Bruno, among other things, used his position in the Gambino crime family to extract extortionate payments from the owner of a waste carting company in Queens. He admitted that he was an enforcer for an illegal carting company that ran a multi-million-dollar trade waste fraud scheme involving bribery of key employees and cheating of several entities out of thousands of dollars in waste-collection charges and threats of physical harm to competitors.
Bruno was eventually arrested in Las Vegas on Oct. 28, 2014. He was originally charged with racketeering and racketeering conspiracy, narcotics trafficking, extortion, obstruction of justice, and the Bosshart murder.
“I was at the crime scene that night and saw firsthand that this was a deliberate and calculated execution of the deceased individual,” said Queens District Attorney Richard Brown after learning of Bruno’s arrest. “While it has taken more than a dozen years to bring the alleged triggerman to justice, I congratulate our federal law enforcement colleagues for their perseverance, commitment and hard work in ensuring that justice delayed is not justice denied.”
At the time of Bruno’s arrest, the U.S. Attorney thanked Brown and his staff for their “outstanding assistance” with the case. A spokesman for Brown told The Forum that the DA’s office “supplied some information that had to do with the extortion part of the crime that [Bruno] was charged with.”
The U.S. Attorney also thanked the Federal Bureau of Investigation and NYPD “for their outstanding investigative work.”
According to the Department of Justice, Bruno became a Gambino associate around 2000, after proving himself as a member of a violent “Young Guns” gang. Over the next 14 years, Bruno engaged in numerous crimes with and on behalf of a faction of the Gambino crime family aligned with Joseph “JoJo” Corozzo, a powerful Gambino member who had risen to become the consigliere of the family.
Pursuant to Bruno’s plea agreement with the government, he will be sentenced to 21 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for May 6.
michael@theforumnewsgroup.com
