NEW YORK - The United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that Angelo Nicosia, 46, of East Stroudsburg, an associate of the Genovese Organized Crime Family of La Cosa Nostra, was found guilty today of extortion and extortion conspiracy after a one-week jury trial.

Nicosia was an associate in the crew of Genovese Family captain, or “capo,” Angelo Prisco. In 1997, a Manhattan-based contractor hired Nicosia as a sub-contractor on a construction job in New Jersey. At the conclusion of that job, Nicosia claimed that the contractor owed him tens of thousands of dollars for work that Nicosia had not actually completed. When the contractor resisted making payment, Peter Rizzo, a Genovese Family associate in Prisco’s crew, went to the contractor’s construction site and attacked the contractor’s business partner.

During the attack, Rizzo broke a coffee pot over the business partner’s head, causing serious head and facial injuries.

In 2004, Nicosia again approached the contractor, claiming that the contractor still owed tens of thousands of dollars from the 1997 construction job. Nicosia, accompanied by Genovese Family associates John Melicharek, a/k/a “Rocky,” and

Michael Iuni, then went to Victim-1’s workplace unannounced and threatened the contractor and the contractor’s family with violence if the contractor did not pay. Because of these threats, the contractor paid Nicosia and his co-conspirators a total of $50,000. After receiving the money, Nicosia and his coconspirators divided the money among themselves, including by paying $10,000 to Prisco as “tribute.”

Nicosia was one of eight defendants who were indicted in this case. Seven have now been convicted, and the eighth is at large.

Nicosia faces a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for October 30