Pizza with Cocaine Topping

By STEVEN FERRARO

The wife and mother of a Queens mob group was sentenced to a seven year jail term on Thursday for smuggling cocaine to her family-owned pizzeria.

Eleonora Gigliotti appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court in front of Judge Raymond Dearie to be handed her sentence. Gigliotti pleaded guilty in January to smuggling 120 kilos of the narcotic. She, along with her husband, Gregorio, son, Angelo, and relative, Franco Fazio conducted crimes that would build an international drug operation between the U.S., Italy and Costa Rica.

From July 2014 to March 2015, Gigliotti was accused of making several trips trips to Costa Rica, where she would bring hundreds of thousands of dollars to an unknown supplier. Dearie noted early in the procedure that this particular sentencing was a difficult one – one that made him consult with multiple colleagues.

This was because of several factors, including her “mental problems” and status as a mostly upstanding, hard-working citizen, attested to by slew of letters sent to Judge Dearie by her family. These two points were exhaustingly argued by Gigliotti’s lawyer, Nicholas Kaizer.

Kaizer made sure the court knew how proud Gigliotti was of her restaurant in Corona, Cucino a Modo Mio. This place of pride was also the source of her drug operation – a point that Assistant U.S Attorney Keith Edelman used as a counter argument. Law enforcement found an arsenal of guns, ammunition, brass knuckles and over $100,000 in cash in the store.

This didn’t stop Kaizer from trying to get the judge to lower his sentence at the last minute. The defense attorney asked for 60 months in prison, because Gigliotti’s experience over the past two years has been hard. He added that his defendant wouldn’t even be in court if it weren’t for her toxic marriage.

Her husband Gregorio Gigliotti, he said, is “combative, volatile,” and has a “dynamic, explosive nature”.

Edelman rejected this by again stressing her “crucial role” in the drug operation. Although  Dearie did not agree with the entire argument, he did note that Gigliotti might be in a different situation if she had not married Gregorio. Dearie continually expressed his sympathy for Gigliotti.

She was allowed to say a few words just before her sentence was passed. She expressed regret for her crimes. “I want to be a good mother and grandmother when I get out,” she said before mumbling the rest of her apology. She waved and blew kisses to the small group of family sitting in the court as she was being taken out.

A shattered family is an expression that describes the Gigliotti’s all too well. Matriarch Gregorio was sentenced to 18 years in prison last month. Angelo Gigliotti is still waiting for his sentence. He is expecting a minimum of 20 years behind bars. Fazio is being tried in his home country of Italy. His extradition is expected later.