ARSON ESCAPE
Jury hears harrowing tale in mob trial
Shakzod Bobokalonov frantically tried to protect his younger brother from the smoke spilling into their Brooklyn apartment.
Bobokalonov, 19 at the time, put his body over his 11-yearold brother, and gave him his shirt for protection as the flames closed in on their Sheepshead Bay apartment on May 2, 2016, at around 1 a.m.
“(The smoke) kept coming out of nowhere,” he testified in Brooklyn Federal Court Thursday.
Prosecutors say Leonid (Lenny) Gershman and Aleksey Tsvetkov convened a meeting in which the arson was planned. The men have ties to an organized crime syndicate known as Thieves in Law, according to authorities.
The fire at the 2220 Voorhies Ave. building was set because it housed a rival poker game on the ground floor, prosecutors said.
Bobokalonov and his brother were rescued with the help of Firefighter Gabriel Buonincontri who broke a window and took them down by ladder.
“(There was) smoke coming out of the first floor, the second floor, third floor, (and) the right corner of the building,” Buonincontri told the jury Thursday.
He was hit in the face by a water hose line and also got whacked by falling debris.
“My arms were completely numb,” he recalled as he described his experience inside the building. He suffered three herniated discs and a broken rotator cuff. The injuries have blocked him from returning to full duty since the fire, he added.
Aside from the fire, prosecutors say the duo on trial were active members of the Russian gang and reported to bosses in former states of the Soviet Union.
They allegedly earned hundreds of thousands of dollars from running an illegal highstakes power game at a Coney Island Ave. location.
On Wednesday, the government’s star witness, Renat Yusufov, testified against his two former buddies. He said he earned millions of dollars hawking cocaine in Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach and Coney Island over the past 10 years.
“(Lenny) was my go-to guy — my muscle,” he said, citing Gershman’s “intimidation and violence” among his characteristics. “If I had problems that needed taking care of, I’d go to him.”
Yusufov pleaded guilty to setting the fire and is cooperating with authorities.
Gershman’s lawyer, Jonathan Savella, admits his client is not perfect but denies he knew anything about the fire.
Tsvetkov’s lawyer, Matthew Myers, made a similar argument in court during his opening statement.