DETROIT FREE PRESS STAFF WRITER
Two Shelby Township restaurant owners are accused of trying to kill a competitor who they felt moved in on their turf, hitting the restaurant owner over the head 11 times with an aluminum baseball bat.
The brothers, Giuseppe and Girolamo D’Anna, also are accused of threatening Pietro Ventimiglia since 2009 when he opened his competing restaurant, Nonna’s Restaurant, across the street, Macomb County Prosecutor Eric Smith said in a release today.
“Don’t you know who we are?” the D’Annas reportedly said, according to the release.
Smith said the threats continued when Ventimiglia more than doubled his eatery’s seating capacity to 90 despite threats from the D’Annas not to expand further. Nonna’s Restaurant is near 23 Mile and Schoenherr.
During the closing-time beating Thursday, the D’Annas stormed into Nonna’s Restaurant. Giuseppe D’Anna allegedly told Ventimiglia that he was going to kill him “so the problem would be over,” according to the release.
It said after the assault, Giuseppe D’Anna shouted that if Ventimiglia went to the police, he would kill Ventimiglia’s children, his family and his parents in Italy.
“It sounds like a bad episode of the Sopranos,” Smith said in a telephone interview, adding that the assault, threats and intimidation of a business owner is unconscionable.
Smith said the D’Annas, who own Tiramisu Restaurant, were arraigned Friday on assault with intent to murder, a life felony, and posted bond, which he believed was $25,000.
He said charges of extortion, a 20-year felony, and witness intimidation, a 10-year felony, were added today. A preliminary exam is set for May 16 in 41A District Court in Shelby Township.
Smith said Ventimiglia was released from the hospital and is recovering, but “he was beaten substantially.”