Two leaders of an Eastern European organized crime syndicate were convicted in federal court of racketeering, arson, and other crimes, and now face up to life in prison in connection with a 2016 fire on Voorhies Avenue.
A federal jury in Brooklyn returned guilty verdicts on Aug. 28 against Leonid “Lenny” Gershman of Sheepshead Bay and Aleksey Tsvetkov of Bergen Beach on charges of racketeering, illegal gambling, loansharking, extortion, arson and marijuana distribution.
The crime syndicate operated predominantly in Sheepshead Bay, Brighton Beach, and Coney Island, according to the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York. The defendants carried out violent crimes in the local communities, including the torching of a building in Sheepshead Bay — endangering the lives two residents as well as firefighters — the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York told the court.
“Today’s verdicts hold Gershman and Tsvetkov responsible for years of using intimidation, violence, and their association with Russian organized crime to inflict crimes on our local communities, including carrying out beatings in broad daylight and committing arson in the dead of night, endangering the lives of tenants and New York City firefighters,” said U.S. Attorney Richard Donoghue.
Donoghue said that his office, working with a division of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency, has landed a significant blow against organized crime.
“This office and our partners on the DEA Strike Force have dismantled the defendants’ criminal syndicate and will continue to work tirelessly to prevent organized crime elements from flourishing in the Eastern District of New York at the expense of our residents,” he said.
The two mobsters partnered in an illegal high-stakes poker game on Coney Island Avenue, where bets wagered on a given night could exceed $800,000, generating substantial illicit profits for their criminal syndicate, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office, and in the spring of 2016, the two men agreed to have to co-conspirators — both of whom testified at trial — torch a residential building on 2220 Voorhies Avenue where a rival game took place on the ground floor.
One of the firefighters also related his own harrowing account of the fire, where he sustained lasting injuries to his neck and shoulder, and he has gone into a fire since.
Gershman and Tsvetkov, along with co-conspirators from states of the former Soviet Union, operated as a racketeering enterprise, committing a host of crimes to enrich themselves, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Members of the gang were linked to high-level members of Russian organized crime known as “thieves in law,” who authorized syndicate members to use violence to protect their criminal activities, Donoghue said.
The defendants also preyed upon numerous extortion victims in the Eastern District of New York and elsewhere, according to the U.S. Attorney’s office. For example Tsvetkov attacked a victim outside Aces Auto Bodyshop in Gravesend, which Tsvetkov co-owned and used to run a an insurance-fraud scheme. The beating was captured on the autoshop’s video surveillance and showed Tsvetkov punching the victim in the face and continuing to attack him in the middle of the street as the victim lay on the ground.
After the videotaped beating, which Tsvetkov saved to his cell phone, he boasted to a co-conspirator about putting the victim “to sleep,” according to the according to the U.S. Attorney’s office.
