Gangland May 9th 2024

[Dr031718]

The Attorney Seeking Compassion For Mob Hitman John Pappa Is An Ex-Con Charged with Domestic Violence


When Colombo gangster John Pappa sought an early release from a life sentence for four mob murders, he hired a kindred spirit who had spent his own time behind bars. Before he became an attorney, Shon Hopwood spent 11 years in prison for bank robberies that grossed $200,000, Gang Land has learned. In prison, Hopwood became an ace jailhouse lawyer, even authoring two winning appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court.

After his release in 2008, he obtained a law degree and has since become a law professor at a prestigious law school and was an advisor to President Trump on prison reform.

By 2017, nine years after his release from federal prison, Hopwood had married a woman from his home town in Nebraska, had two young kids, and was a professor at Georgetown Law where he would mentor The Donald's daughter Tiffany who enrolled that same year and who graduated in 2020. (Georgetown officials say Hopwood is currently on leave from the school.)

Along the way, Hopwood wrote a book, Law Man, spoke on an academic panel with the federal judge who had sentenced him, and was celebrated in the national media as an ex-con who knew first hand that sentences longer than five years "do little to help society or the prisoner" because they rob inmates of hope and discourage them from preparing for life outside prison walls.

But Hopwood, the name partner in the Washington D.C firm of Hopwood & Singhal, may soon be facing a refresher course on life as an inmate.

He is slated for trial next month on charges of domestic violence. Hopwood is accused of beating his wife in front of their two young children, causing injuries that include broken bones, a chipped tooth, a concussion, and bruises all over her body. The beatings have twice required treatment for his wife at hospitals near the Washington D.C. home where they have lived for about six years.

Hopwood, 48, is specifically charged with assaulting his wife, Ann Marie, on four separate occasions in their home from October 2, 2022 until September 21, 2023. If convicted, he faces six months in prison on each of four misdemeanor counts in the information that assistant U.S. attorney Katherine Ballou filed on April 29. (Local crimes in Washington are prosecuted by the feds in D.C. Superior Court, since the nation's capital does not have a local prosecutor.)

In recent years, according to a September 27, 2023 arrest warrant by Metropolitan Police Department detective Cassandra Velez, the six-foot-two, 220 pound Hopwood has terrorized and verbally abused his wife of 15 years, who is also a lawyer, and a partner in her husband's law firm.

Hopwood has left his wife stranded in unfamiliar locations far from their home or hotel during several business and pleasure trips they took to Kentucky, Florida, New Orleans, and Scottsdale, according to the complaint. On one occasion, he canceled Ann Marie's plane reservations and flew home with his kids. Another time, he "abandoned (her) in an unknown area of Washington, telling her he hopes she gets raped or killed," the complaint said.

On October 2, 2022, Hopwood threw Ann Marie down a flight of stairs, and would not let her leave the house for "several days" due to visible "bruising to her neck, back, legs, arm, head elbow and swelling to her finger," according to the complaint.

A few days later, she met a friend and "physically showed (her) the injuries in a bathroom in a restaurant," the complaint said. Velez obtained pictures of Ann Marie's injuries that her friend took in the restaurant bathroom, as well as photos of the injuries that Ann Marie had texted her friend, the detective wrote.

Five days after that beating, on October 7, 2022, Hopwood left his wife stranded in Piscataway, N.J. after attending a Nebraska-Rutgers football game at Rutgers Stadium. Leaving his wife to find her own way home, Hopwood took off with their two children, a boy, 14 and a girl, 12, according to the complaint.

Hopwood's most recent assault against his wife took place after another sporting event that the family attended. The Atlanta Braves-Washington Nationals baseball game at Nationals Park on September 21, 2023, according to the complaint.

Shon & Ann Marie in 2001 prison photo The couple, who've had marital problems since 2019, according to two witnesses who were interviewed by Velez, began arguing during the game. It continued as the family walked to their car after the game, as Hopwood allegedly "yell(ed) obscenities" at Ann Marie. Once in the car, he "threw (her) cell phone out the window" and drove off with their children as she retrieved it, the complaint said.

When Ann Marie got home, Hopwood "continued to yell obscenities at her" and "repeatedly grabbed" his wife, pushed her and threw "her backwards" and "on the floor repeatedly" as she "attempted to enter their bedroom to obtain her belongings," Velez wrote. "In one of the last times that (Hopwood) pushed (her,) he fell on top of her," the complaint said.

Three days later, MPD police responded to a 911 call that a woman was locked in the basement of the one family home. When police got to the house, Hopwood insisted that his wife had gone to a concert, but refused to let police in the house, the complaint said.

One officer, who had responded to a prior domestic abuse call, stepped away from the door, and texted Ann Marie. He got a quick reply: "I'm outside in back of house."

When he got there, Ann Marie was "visibly upset, crying with visible injuries to her face," and the officer notified his dispatcher that she needed to be taken to a hospital, the complaint said. Hopwood, who heard the radio transmission on the other cop's radio, said, "What?" and moments later could be seen on that officer's "BWC (body worn camera) running away from the (house,)" the complaint said.

Ann Marie told cops that she wasn't locked in the basement but that when the Child & Family Services Agency workers came to the home earlier that day, Hopwood ordered her to stay in the basement and she complied. She told Velez that "she knew she would be harmed further by (Hopwood) if she left the basement."

Rushed to a local hospital, the wife's injuries included a broken finger, "numerous contusions to her arms, legs, and chin, as well as a chipped front tooth . . . sustained by hitting her face on the floor after being pushed by (Hopwood) during the assault," Velez wrote.

Their children knew she was home but "are afraid" of their father and supported Hopwood's claims to the police that day because he told them to, according to the complaint.

Five months earlier, on April 28, Hopwood "threw her to the ground" and assaulted Ann Marie after she confronted him about $90,000 "that was missing from their bank account," she told Velez. He punched and slapped her in the face and refused to let her leave the house, or even her bedroom, "for the entire weekend," according to the complaint.

Her facial injuries grew so hideous that, the following day, Ann Marie texted pictures of her face showing "a bruise the shape of an entire hand print" to a friend and asked if her daughter could stay with her "so she would not see her injuries," Velez wrote, noting that she obtained the pictures from Ann Marie, as well as from her friend.

On April 30, when her friend brought her daughter home, Ann Marie "took advantage of the opportunity to seek assistance" and "ran out of the residence and got into (her friend's car) yelling for (her) to drive, repeatedly saying, 'Go,'" to a "nearby hospital," where she spent the night, Velez wrote.

When the police officers who rescued her five months later asked her why she is still living with Hopwood, she "stated that she can't leave because he has too much power, that the children are afraid of (her husband) and that a restraining order would make things worse for her," the complaint stated.

Hopwood has not taught any classes at Georgetown Law since his arrest in October. Although he is still listed as a professor with expertise in constitutional law and criminal law and procedure on the law school's website, school officials told Gang Land that he is currently on leave.

Hopwood rejected a plea offer he received from the feds to resolve his case in February, according to a D.C. Superior Court docket sheet summary.

Last month, the government, which had charged him with two counts of assault last fall, upped the ante. It added two more counts against him. He is scheduled for a non-jury, bench trial on June 3 before Judge Elizabeth Wingo, the Presiding Judge of the Domestic Violence Division of the Court.

Hopwood did not respond to requests for comment. His lawyers, Philip Andonian and Sweta Patel also did not respond to telephone and email queries about the case. AUSA Ballou and Patricia Hartman, the public information officer of the U.S. Attorney's Office declined to discuss the plea offer that Hopwood rejected.

It's unclear whether the attorney's current legal problems will have an impact on the motion for a compassionate release he filed on behalf of Pappa. Hopwood was an officer of the Court in good standing during oral arguments on Pappa's motion before Brooklyn Federal Judge Pamela Chen last month. But the Colombo gangster, who hired Hopwood two years ago, may not be happy that the lawyer who spoke on his behalf was accused of assaulting his wife last year.

Judge Reserves Decision On Compassion For John Pappa; Others Voice Their Opinions

His high-powered Washington attorney had done his job. He framed his longshot motion for an early release from prison for 49-year-old Colombo gangster John Pappa. But Pappa knew that winning or losing would be up to him, and so he gave it his best shot. But first, his lawyer answered most of the issues that the government, and the judge had raised.

The money and letters Pappa received from wiseguys and mob associates while behind bars was due to "friendships made with people inside the Federal Bureau of Prisons" rather than persons with "ties to organized crime," attorney Shon Hopwood declared. He noted that it is "a very common thing" for inmates "to send money back to their friends" after they're released.

He knew mobster George (Georgie Neck) Zappola and mob associate Frank Schwamborn because each served time with Pappa in Allenwood federal prison, he said. Wiseguys Joseph Chilli and Anthony (Tony Bones) Loffredo likewise did time with Pappa at other federal facilities. Mobster Joseph Savarese once mailed him a picture that the BOP refused to deliver, and returned it to Joe Sav.

Hopwood told Judge Pamela Chen that Colombo mobster Ilario (Fat Larry) Sessa was a friend of Gerard Pappa, his client's slain mobster father. It was his dad's execution, when his son was five years old, that has been cited as a reason why John Pappa later hooked up with the Colombo family. "John doesn't know why," said Hopwood, "but (Sessa) sends him money every Christmas."

But Judge Chen noted that Pappa hadn't "disavowed" his mob ties or "showed remorse" for his crimes, and asked Hopwood about his client's "attitude" and whether he was really "a changed man." In response, the attorney deferred to his client: "Pappa is going to address that," he said. "I don't think I can do it justice like he will be able to."

The exchange took both Pappa and the judge down a long twisted road:

"I've spent my 20s, my 30s, and my 40s continuously conducting self-examinations," Pappa told the judge, referring to his years behind bars following his arrest in 1997. "I've fully come to understand why I did what I did and why I'll never in life do it again.”

Judge Chen: Tell me why.
Pappa: As I grew up, this was all I knew. I never stopped to think. When I was brought up, everything was victim blaming. I accepted my father's death as something that could be normal. People told me your father died because he did the wrong thing. He was such a great man and such a wonderful man. So that's what I believed.

Judge Chen: Why join the organization that killed your father?
Pappa: Because I thought I was going to do this better than my dad. That's what I was supposed to do and that's what I was in line to do. You get your beliefs from what people tell you, and from what you hear, see, and think is expected of you. And that's what I did. I believe wholeheartedly that this was expected of me.

Judge Chen What was expected of you?
Pappa: To follow in my father's footsteps, to get into crime and do these things, and that's what I did. Everything I ever learned and heard was glorification of my father.

Prison, Pappa added, "is when I rediscovered my humanity." Sometime "in the early 2000s. . . out of nowhere" he said, he received a letter that asked: "Don't you ever feel bad about what you did."

"That was the first time that it was in my head that I made other people feel the exact same way that I felt with regard to my father's death," he said. He began to realize then that he "ruined the lives" of his mother and sister. "I apologize to them from the bottom of my heart. That's when I had the epiphany. That's when it changed."

"I vowed I was going to do everything in my power to change myself and became the person who I should have been. I committed myself every single day, every day I'm doing what I can to make amends. I made a conscientious decision to live differently, and that's what I'm doing."

"When we talk about rehabilitation," he said, "I've done this because this is it, this is real. I don't want to go to New York. I'm not going back to New York under no circumstances. I welcome the most stringent supervised release restrictions that there are."

"I've learned that working as hard as you possibly can, being honest and helping others, that those are the three keys to a meaningful life," he said. "I now see things clearly, act correctly, and my actions are positive, effective, and completely unselfish."

For about eight or nine minutes, as Pappa said all the right things, his was the only voice that could be heard in Judge Chen's courtroom. Then he said he feels "horrible for the harm that I caused the victims and their families," and asked the judge to show him "some kind of mercy."

That's when Salvatore Sparacino, whose brother John was killed and savagely mutilated by Pappa, couldn't bite his tongue any longer. Neither could Michele Gedz, who was five months pregnant when her paramour and the father of her unborn child, Rolando Rivera, was killed by Pappa.

"And the Oscar goes to you," said Sparacino. "I can't listen to this piece of shit."
"Exactly," said Gedz.

Tallest Guy In The Room Gets The Stiffest Sentence In The One-Punch Extortion Case

He was on the other end of the steakhouse bar when restaurant owner Bruno Selimaj was punched in the mouth over an $86,000 gambling debt that his relatives owed a Queens bookie. But Genovese wiseguy Joseph Celso ended up with the stiffest prison term of the three defendants convicted in the seven year old case.

That's because when Nino Selimaj watched the video of his brother Bruno getting punched in the mouth on May 17, 2017, he spotted Celso — the tallest guy in the room — right away on the tape. Celso was a frequent patron of Nino's Ristorante, an Upper East Sude eatery owned by Nino Selimaj and he called Celso that same night.

The conversation didn't go well. Celso told Nino that his brother Bruno had "better drop the charges" about the one-punch assault that he filed with police because "otherwise, it's going to be ugly."

Celso, 51, was acquitted of extortion and obstruction of justice. But he was found guilty of conspiring to commit extortion and on Tuesday Brooklyn Federal Judge Eric Komitee agreed with the government's contention that his remark to Nino was a threat and sentenced him to 33 months and ordered him to pay a $50,000 fine.

The prison term is nine months more than he meted out a week earlier to 86-year old Anthony (Rom) Romanello, the wiseguy who threw the lone punch at Bruno, an assault prosecutors used to convict Rom of extortion.

Another factor that Komitee mentioned in sentencing Celso was his attendance at a Christmas party with other Genovese wiseguys during his trial.

Celso didn't do as well as Romanello, his much older cohort, whose two year sentence was almost four years less than what the feds asked for. But Celso's prison term is eight months below the low end of his guidelines sentence and a year and a half less than what prosecutors had sought.

Romanello's attorney, Gerald McMahon was ecstatic about his client's sentence, "When the government asks for 71 months, and the judge gave 24, thank God justice was done in Brooklyn," the attorney told reporters outside the courtroom after Rom was sentenced.

Lawyer Gerard Marrone was happy as well that Celso received a lighter sentence than what prosecutors sought, but much less enthusiastic about the outcome than his co-counsel was.

"There still exists a prejudice against Italian Americans at sentencings," Marrone told Gang Land yesterday. "The average sentence for an individual convicted of conspiracy to commit extortion in the U.S. is 16 months; My client received 33 months."

Luan (Lou) Bexheti, a runner for the Queens bookie who took bets from the relatives of the Selimaj brothers whose refusal to pay their $86,000 gambling debt even though they had won $100,000 a week or two earlier was the genesis of the steakhouse confrontation, also got a much lighter sentence than prosecutors had sought.

Komitee agreed with a request for leniency by lawyer Kevin Faga and ignored the government's request for a "serious sentence" of up to two years. He gave Bexheti, who pleaded guilty before trial, four months. Faga had argued that his client had nothing to do with any threats in the case, but had merely told his boss that the gamblers who had lost $86,000 were deadbeats.

[Tonyd621]

Thank for posting

[Tonyd621]

What the Selimaj did is the worst thing you can do in that business.

[Brovelli]

Celso 33 months, what did he do? Just the threat about not reporting the punch to police?

[AntComello]

Thanks for posting

[Shellackhead]

Thanks for posting

[bluehouse]

Theres no chance whatsoever of Pappa being released.The only way he would get compassionate release is when hes in his 80s so in anther 30 years and has stage 4 brain,liver,heart,eye,skin cancer with aids and luekemia and the world will be extremely left moreso of what it is today.I dont even know why they are entertaining this i think maybe for him to get his hopes up and then to be let down as a form of punishment