OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
12:11 PM – Monday, March 11, 2024
Famous hitman for the Gambino crime family, Joey Testa, will be released from prison in April after 35 years of incarceration.
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The announcement from the Federal Bureau of Prisons comes just weeks after the New York Post released a statement regarding the release of Testa’s partner, Anthony Senter. Senter was the other half of the deadly duo, known as the “Gemini Twins.”
After completing a portion of the life-plus-20-year sentence they received in 1989 for taking part in at least 11 murders, Testa, 69, and Senter, 68, were both granted release, according to federal confirmation.
“Joey’s had serious medical problems for years, and he has done well in prison,” Testa’s attorney Linda Sheffield explained to the New York Post. “Those are things that play into setting a release date.”
Testa and Senter were members of a mob group led by a Gambino-made man, Roy DeMeo, back in the 1970s and 1980s.
The Gemini Lounge, located at 4021 Flatlands Ave. in Brooklyn, New York, served as the organization’s starting point for a number of crimes, including drug trafficking, car theft, and murders.
“It was a regular blue-collar place,” a former patron of the Gemini Lounge recalled of the establishment, which is now a storefront church. “You didn’t know that there was a murderous maniac running around.”
Testa and Senter, who had been friends since childhood, were referred to as the “Gemini Twins” because they spent so much time at their boss’s hangout.
At least 75 murders and disappearances were linked to DeMeo’s team by federal and local police. Independent experts estimate that number to be closer to 200.
In Testa’s 1989 trial, prosecution witnesses disclosed that those designated for execution would be enticed to a converted apartment that served as a slaughterhouse next to the Gemini Lounge.
“When the [victim] would walk in, somebody would shoot him in the head with a silencer,” ex-gang member Dominick Mantigilio told the court. “Somebody would wrap a towel around to stop the blood and somebody would stab him in the heart to stop the blood from pumping.”
Mantigilio stated that after hauling their victim into the bathtub to allow the blood to drain away, the crew members would “take him apart and package him,” dumping the body parts in a landfill nearby.
However, many of the reported targets of the gang were never discovered.
At Testa’s 1989 sentence, United States District Court Judge Vincent L. Broderick said that the horrific killings were “so horrendous and so inhumane and so unbelievable” that “the only sane course” was to send him to life in prison.
However, according to the United States Parole Commission, Testa was eligible for release after serving just 10 years of his lifetime sentence since his crimes were committed before 1987, which is the year that new federal sentencing rules went into effect.
Senter, who is expected to be released in June, is currently residing in a halfway house in New York City, while Testa will most likely move to Nevada to live with his 71-year-old wife, JoAnn.
However, residents believe the simultaneous release foreshadows more revelations to come in the near future.
“There’s a rumor going around that when those guys get out, they’ll spill the beans,” the former Gemini Lounge patron said. “They know where a lot of bodies are buried. There is no reason for them to be let out unless they’ve been cooperating with someone.”
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