Two charged with killing innocent victim of mob war
Police suspect mistaken identity in 2016 targeted shooting of 72-year-old at café
Two men who were part of a roundup of alleged street gang members were charged Thursday with carrying out a murder where the victim is believed to have been an innocent victim of a clash between Mafia clans.
Jeff Joubens Theus, 25, and Ebamda Ndutu Lufia, 28, appeared before Quebec Court Judge Geneviève Graton at the Montreal courthouse where they were charged with the first-degree murder of Angelo D’Onofrio. The 72-year-old man was shot June 2, 2016 while he was at a café in the Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough. The shooting was carried out after Rocco Sollecito, 67, a high-ranking member of the Rizzuto organization, was gunned down in Laval near the end of May 2016. When D’Onofrio was killed, police sources speculated that the shooter, or shooters, killed the wrong person because the café was known to be a hangout of a man with known ties to the Mafia.
D’Onofrio’s brother attended Theus and Lufia’s first court appearance on Thursday and he later told reporters his brother “had nothing to do with organized crime.”
“I am relieved that the arrests were made, but that doesn’t bring my brother back,” said D’Onofrio’s brother, while declining to give his first name. “Some (media) reported that my brother was involved with the Mafia. I want those people to take that back.”
Theus and Lufia were part of a group of seven men who were arrested on Wednesday in Project Mazout, an investigation by the Montreal police into a series of violent crime. According to a release issued by the Montreal police, the men who were arrested “are tied to street gangs.” The Montreal police said the investigation began following D’Onofrio’s murder, and investigators eventually tied the men to seven violent crimes “committed on behalf of organized crime.” But the Montreal police did not say who they believe the crimes were carried out for. The Rizzuto organization has in recent years been under attack from rival clans looking to take control of the Montreal Mafia.
Nine men face charges in indictments that were made public at the Montreal courthouse on Thursday.
Theus and Lufia and two other men — Elvis Comoe, 28, and Kens Emmanuel Noel, 26 — were charged in connection with three arson fires that were set in Montreal and Laval between Dec. 12 and April 25. The last fire was set at the Complexe Funéraire Loreto, a funeral home in St-Léonard that has been owned by relatives of nowdeceased Montreal Mafia leader Vito Rizzuto for decades. It is now owned by Charlie Renda, the son of Paolo Renda, Rizzuto’s brotherin-law who disappeared without a trace in 2010. All four men are accused of having plotted the fire at the funeral home over the course of 11 days before it was set.
The other arson charges involve fires that were set at buildings owned by other people with known ties to the Rizzuto organization. One fire, on Jan. 5, caused considerable damage to a hair salon owned by the wife of Carmelo (Mini-me) Cannistraro, a man who, in 2011, pleaded guilty to charges related to a multimillion-dollar bookmaking ring he ran with the support of the Rizzuto organization. Sollecito in particular financed the bookmaking operation when it was in operation. The other fire, on Dec. 12, was set at a building on Maurice Duplessis Blvd. in Rivière-desPrairies owned by Marco Pizzi, 47, a man who is facing drug trafficking charges in an RCMP investigation into people with alleged ties to the Mafia in Montreal.