FILE- In this Oct. 4, 2013 file photo, defendants Anthony Ferrari, left, and Anthony Moscatiello, right, talk during their trial in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Court records show the new date was set Friday, Dec. 13, 2019, for Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello, and Anthony “Little Tony” Ferrari. They have been serving life prison sentences for murder convictions in the shooting death of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis, who founded the Miami Subs restaurant chain and owned a fleet of gambling ships. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky, Pool)
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — A March 23 retrial date has been set for two men who were previously convicted in a notorious 2001 mob-related Florida slaying but were given a new trial by a Florida appeals court because of errors in their original trials.
Court records show the new date was set Friday for Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello, 81, and Anthony “Little Tony” Ferrari, 62. They have been serving life prison sentences for murder convictions in the shooting death of Konstantinos “Gus” Boulis, who founded the Miami Subs restaurant chain and owned a fleet of gambling ships.
The 4th District Court of Appeal last year ordered a new trial because testimony was improperly allowed from a now-deceased witness claiming to have heard the hit man discuss killing Boulis and that Moscatiello had ordered the slaying. The Florida Supreme Court declined to consider the state’s appeal, leaving the lower court’s decision in place.
Boulis, 51, was slain during a power struggle over the lucrative SunCruz Casinos gambling fleet. Allegedly on orders from Moscatiello — reputedly a member of New York’s Gambino crime family once headed by John Gotti — hit man John Gurino pulled up next to Boulis’s car on a Fort Lauderdale street and shot him several times.
Gurino later was fatally shot himself in a 2003 confrontation with a Boca Raton delicatessen owner unrelated to the Boulis killing, according to trial testimony.
A few months before he died, Boulis had sold SunCruz to Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff and businessman Adam Kidan, both of whom were later convicted of fraud in the transaction in Miami federal court.
The power struggle came when it appeared Boulis might seek to regain control of SunCruz. It was Kidan who brought Moscatiello into the picture, although Kidan was never charged with any crime.
A third conspirator, James “Pudgy” Fiorillo, pleaded guilty, testified against Moscatiello and Ferrari, and was sentenced to time served. Kidan also cooperated with prosecutors in the murder case in return for a more lenient sentence for the fraud conviction.
The three conspirators in the Boulis killing were originally arrested in 2005.
By CURT ANDERSON
© Copyright 2019 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
