Two sons of late Colombo mob boss indicted
Variety of charges lead to more than 30 arrests
From Lauren Rivera
CNN
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Two sons of the late Colombo crime family's boss were indicted with 29 others on federal racketeering and other charges Tuesday in New York City.
Anthony and Christopher Colombo are the sons of Joseph Colombo -- from whom the Colombo crime family took its name. Joseph Colombo died in 1978 after being gunned down in Columbus Circle in Manhattan.
Twenty-nine of the defendants were arrested Tuesday morning, while one was still being sought and another died recently.
The charges allege members and associates of the Colombo organized crime family and others engaged in racketeering, extortion, mail fraud, commercial bribery, money laundering, and the operation of illegal gambling businesses throughout the New York area, according to the indictment, obtained by CNN.
It alleges the two Colombos and their associate schemed to take over legitimate construction companies and then used their control of those companies to defraud a publicly traded Internet advertising company out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The investigation was conducted by the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the state's attorney general, the FBI and other state and local investigating authorities over the course of four years.
Anthony and Christopher Colombo were members of the "Colombo brothers crew," an offshoot of the crime family. The brothers' group was formed in the mid-1990s after a bloody civil war within the crime family, which led to the murders of numerous soldiers and associates of the organization.
The investigation also revealed the operation of a large-scale gambling business in New York City related to the Colombo brothers' organization.
If convicted of racketeering, the defendants could be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in prison, the U.S. attorney's office told CNN.
