Gambino gangster Anthony Senter paroled, set for release in 2024

News

E Jon Levine, Mary Kay Linge and Georgia Worrell

A “cold-blooded” Mafia killer tied to 11 bodies, some of them mutilated, will be released from federal prison next year after serving just 35 years in prison in life – angering the families of his victims.

Former Gambino crime family boss Anthony Senter, 68, behind bars in Canaan, PA, was recently given the green light for release by the US Parole Commission.

“The Commission hoped that he observed the rules of the organization and that his suspension in June 2024 will not affect the public welfare,” said the spokesperson of the Ministry of Justice in the Post.

But it is very different from the federal view of Senter, who was sentenced to life 20 years in 1989 after being charged for participating in at least 11 murders.

Senter, along with six other terrorists, was also indicted on racketeering charges, including narcotics sales, car theft, loan sharking and extortion.

Senter is one of the underworld crew working under Roy DeMeo, a Gambino man.

The crew operated out of the Gemini Lounge at 4021 Flatlands Ave. in Flatlands, Brooklyn, where they committed most of their murders in the 1970s and 1980s.

Federal and city authorities have traced at least 75 deaths and disappearances to DeMeo’s crew — and independent investigators put them at more than 200.

Rudy Giuliani, then the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, first brought the case against Senter and 20 other members of the Gambino family and associates – including the godfather “Big Paul” Castellano – surprised by the parole decision.

Senter “should die in prison,” Giuliani said. “He showed, without exaggeration, his contempt for human life.

“He is a stone-cold killer who likes to kill people,” the prosecutor said. “And I believe he was happy to participate in some way in the mutilation that happened later.”

The “Gemini Method“

Senter was born in Canarsie as the son of Italian immigrants who adopted their first family name of Sente.

He and another crew member, longtime friend Joseph Testa, spent a lot of time at their boss DeMeo’s vacation and became known as the Gemini Twins.

“Gemini Lounge was known to everyone as a house of horrors, because you go in, you might not come out,” said Curtis Sliwa, the founder of Guardian Angels, who grew up to play stickball with Senter in Canarsie.

The future murderer was widely known in the neighborhood as a hothead.

“It’s true that he can flip the script — he might be having a conversation with you, and then all of a sudden something a little distracts him,” Sliwa said. “A lot of times Joey Testa has to calm him down.”

DeMeo, who had worked as an apprentice before starting his criminal career, used his earlier training to create a deadly method of murder – later dubbed “the Gemini Method” – that Senter followed with gusto and others.

Former gang member Dominick Mantigilio testified in Senter’s trial that those who hunted for death would first be lured to an apartment near the Gemini Lounge that was rented by the gang. terrorist Joseph “Dracula” Guglielmo.

“When the (victim) walked in, someone shot him in the head with a low sound,” said Mantigilio in court. “One wraps a towel to stop the bleeding and another stabs his heart to stop the blood pump.”

The crew – often wearing only their pants, to avoid staining their clothes – drag the corpse into the bath and leave the blood, like a pig in a slaughterhouse. .

They then “pulled him out, put him on the pool in the living room, took him away and wrapped him up,” Mantigilio said.

The bloodless body parts were placed in cardboard boxes and taken to Brooklyn’s Fountain Avenue landfill – now Shirley Chisholm State Park in Canarsie – where they were buried under piles of garbage and lost to forever.

Senter and his group “carried out murder,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Walter Mack said during their 17-month trial in 1988 and 1989 – committing “the most brutal” The charges were filed in New York federal court, prosecutors said.

Golden Age

The heyday of DeMeo’s crew, from 1975 to 1983, was the last decade of the New York Mafia’s “golden years,” said historian Selwyn Robb.

“The families of New York ran the country, ran the Mafia in the United States,” said Robb, the author of the crime thriller “Five Families.”

“The Gambinos and Genovese are the two largest and most powerful families,” explained Robb. The Gambino family, headed by Castellano, has about 100 known people, or “doers,” like DeMeo.

But “for every person who made the man there were probably 10 people who worked for him,” Robb said – “partners” like Senter and Testa.

The size of the structure allowed Castellano to maintain firm denials of the bloodthirsty activities of family associates, despite receiving $20,000 a week in cash from the expensive car theft ring run by DeMeo. and the crew.

In January 1983, shortly after DeMeo was given a grand jury subpoena to testify in a federal trial, his bullet-riddled body was found frozen in the trunk of his own Cadillac — canceled, investigators later found out, by members of his group. enough crew.

DeMeo’s death did not stop the case.

In March 1984, Giuliani indicted Castellano, along with Senter and others, on multiple charges of racketeering, including drug trafficking, extortion and murder.

Eighteen months later, during the trial, Castellano himself was killed in a public shooting on the sidewalk outside Sparks Steak House in Midtown Manhattan, ordered by his successor. to become the boss of the Gambino family: John Gotti Jr.

Senter, at 30, practiced the style of the “Dapper Don” during his trial.

The “badly handsome” defendant, a Post fashion reporter wrote at the time, was careful to show off his “good looks” in Giorgio Armani suits and ties and “nice white shirts” whenever he appeared in public. the court.

“You want to look good,” Senter laughed.

Many Victims

Many of the DeMeo’s crew members were confirmed and suspected members of rival gangs, but not all.

The two murders that sent Senter to prison were the murders of Charles Mongitore and Daniel Scutaro, employees of a Brooklyn auto dealership.

Mongitore, 30, was charged after the son of a Gambino family member stabbed him in a personal dispute. On June 5, 1980, DeMeo’s crew attacked Mongitore at his workplace, shooting him 14 times at close range and slitting his throat.

Soon, Scutaro, 25, arrived at the body shop to start his work day – only to find the gang cleaning up the crime scene.

He was also shot down.

All the victims were later found in the trunk of a car, Newsday reported.

In 1977, Senter and Testa shot and killed Cherie Golden after her boyfriend became a federal informant.

While Golden and Testa were talking outside the living room, Senter shot the woman twice in the back of the head, then again in her face as her body slammed to the floor, according to the “Murder Machine,” a 1993 book about. the DeMeo crew by Gene Mustaine and Jerry Capeci.

Jerome Hofaker was only 23 years old when he was killed outside his girlfriend’s house in 1977 by Testa and Senter after a fight with one of Testa’s brothers, Mustaine wrote and Capeci.

Senter was never charged with the murders of Golden or Hofaker.

“We knew it was related to bad people,” cousin Denise Hofaker, 69, told the Post. “What I remember is being at the funeral and my aunt turned to me with fear in her eyes and said, ‘Oh my God, what are we going to do? what’s going on here?’ He was worried that someone might come after us.”

Hofaker was surprised by the news about Senter’s impending release.

“That’s too bad,” he said. “From what I understand he got a life sentence. He is 68 years old. That is not a life. He has a really bad life to live, and that’s not right.”