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When Sylvester Zottola was assassinated last October outside a McDonald’s in the Bronx after a string of near misses, it was widely believed his death had something to do with his long association with the Bonanno crime family.

But the mastermind of the killing, federal prosecutors now say, was actually a member of a family even closer to Mr. Zottola — his own son.

Anthony Zottola, 41, of Larchmont, N.Y., hired a member of the Bloods gang, Bushawn Shelton, 35, to kill his father and his older brother, Salvatore, prosecutors said.

Mr. Shelton in turn outsourced the job to several other members of the Bloods, according to a new indictment in the case unsealed on Tuesday in the Eastern District of New York.