Elderly Man Dies in Handcuffs During Social Club Raid

Google Street View of Banner Civic Social Club in Bensonhurst.

A 75-year-old man went into cardiac arrest and died after he was handcuffed during a raid Tuesday afternoon at the Italian social club he managed in Bensonhurst. Besides running the Banner Civic Social Club on 72nd Street, Sam Nastasa had bit parts in The Sopranos and other crime movies like Rounders; neighbors say the club was a hang-out for old men who would chat and play cards. But state and federal investigators say the club was once the base of operations for the Bonanno crime family, and has been patronized by members of the Colombo crime family.

An autopsy on Nastasa proved inconclusive, and the medical examiner’s office needs further testing to determine what caused the cardiac arrest. Obviously, being arrested can be traumatic, and one law enforcement official confirmed to the Times that Nastasa was going to be charged in state court in connection with an illegal gambling machine. Tuesday's raid was conducted by a group of NYPD officers and the F.B.I. joint Organized Crime Investigation Division. Sam Nastasa Jr., his 24-year-old son, tells the Times, "I've never seen anybody get money from the [electronic poker game]. They found like $15 in the machine or something."

Another unnamed official tells the Times that Nastasa was "totally cordial, he was totally compliant" during the raid. His daughter says he was never arrested before (which the city's Department of Correction confirmed) and recalls that her father, a retired ironworker, arrived at the club at 8 a.m. every day and "made sure everything was clean...He had no heart problems. He would be happy and jolly every morning. He did not look his age at all." Speaking to the Post, she adds, "I think the police were very rude and had no consideration. They treated a 75 year-old man as if he were a young kid."

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By John Del Signore in News on April 9, 2009 11:43 AM

Comments [rss]

cak poker

"The elderly manager had no criminal record in New York going back to 1980, police sources said."

There should be rules to treat older people with more respect.

bonus cake poker

NannyState

Big surprise here: those cops were strictly "off the payroll".

verbal

gotta love when profiling is OK, in the meantime they search my bags on the subway while ramzi el-kaboom goes unimpeded.

we are all truly fucked in this country, line up behind the manchurian candidate obomot and start flagellating yourself in apology to the rest of the world for your existence.

how dare you...

tmz is evil

The Manchurian Candidate was and always will be a lame, overrated film and a even lamer, cliched Rightwing talking point.

JacqueMehoff

wasn't there a story about a guy who gets stopped at the US station at least one a month or something? so often that he went to the press with his accounts.

Novanglus

I am not understanding how this is racist against Italians. Just because they raided the place? They suspect mob activity, but because they act on it, that's racist?

Sad that you guys think that. Leave the "pity me" shit to us black people, ok? (kidding)

hotstepper

"the NYPD organized-crime intelligence division and FBI agents had gone to the club for reasons they would not disclose. The elderly manager had no criminal record in New York going back to 1980, police sources said."

so are you saying if the cops suspected terrorism within a mosque, then arrested an elderly cleric (with no criminal history) and he died in police custody there would be no public outcry? no front page story? no ACLU? no Fat Al?

and pity? someone died, pity the family. but of course this should not ruffle our feathers because his ethnicity isn't protected under the PC-umbrella.

hotstepper

"the NYPD organized-crime intelligence division and FBI agents had gone to the club for reasons they would not disclose. The elderly manager had no criminal record in New York going back to 1980, police sources said."

so are you saying if the cops suspected terrorism within a mosque, then arrested an elderly cleric (with no criminal history) and he died in police custody there would be no public outcry? no front page story? no ACLU? no Fat Al?

and pity? someone died, pity the family. but of course this should not ruffle our feathers because his ethnicity isn't protected under the PC-umbrella.

streber

...and didn't someone set a pipe bomb off in times square?

Anyone working on that one?

whitecastlerock

The NYPD doesn't have anything better to do than this? Raiding a social club for a vending machine? Don't they have bike riders to abuse, pot smokers to sodomize or insane people to taser?

Brainwash

NYPD... biggest gang in NYC... after the sanitation workers.

handsomedevil

but it's not PC to defend whites.

Yeah! That's why there was no mention of this incident in the media, either. It's like white people just don't matter anymore.

hotstepper

yeah i'm sure there will be a protest later today.

hotstepper

this is an outrageous and racist offense on the italian-american community, but it's not PC to defend whites.

go after the friggin albanians already, leave the old i-ties alone.