“He ardently believed that Francesco Cali, a boss in the Gambino crime family, was a prominent member of the deep state, and, accordingly, an appropriate target for a citizen’s arrest,” wrote Mr. Comello’s lawyer, Robert C. Gottlieb.
So Cali is a Mob Boss, how does a little peon like Comello, get that close to him? Answer: Cali knew him
QAnon, a baseless conspiracy theory that originated on internet message boards, played a key role in Mr. Comello’s descent into mental instability, his lawyer said. It claims, among other things, that America is controlled by a “deep state,” that prominent Democratic politicians are pedophiles and that John F. Kennedy Jr., who died in a 1999 plane crash, is secretly alive and will run for president in 2020.
At Mr. Comello’s first court appearance in March, he displayed symbols and phrases associated with QAnon scrawled on his hand in pen. He first began to take an interest in political conspiracy theories, Mr. Gottlieb said, in the weeks after Mr. Trump’s 2016 election.
“Mr. Comello’s support for ‘QAnon’ went beyond mere participation in a radical political organization,” Mr. Gottlieb wrote. “It evolved into a delusional obsession.”Oh he uses Q AFTER he was arrested. That's convenient, especially if your lawyer needs to prove mental insanity, to get you off a murder one charge, especially since none of us know who Q really is.
Driven by that obsession, Mr. Gottlieb said, Mr. Comello began early this year to attempt citizen’s arrests of people he believed to be associated with the deep state. In February, Mr. Comello twice tried to conduct his own arrest of Mayor Bill de Blasio, including one instance in which he showed up at Gracie Mansion, the mayoral home in Manhattan.
Not long after that incident, Mr. Comello sought the help of United States marshals at Federal District Court in Manhattan, and asked that they help him to arrest two California Democrats, Representatives Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff, both of whom he believed were in the vicinity. He was rebuffed.
Both incidents were confirmed by law enforcement officials.He certainly wouldn't be the first person, that tried to implement a citizens arrest.
He was also posting and sharing conspiracy theories online that are associated with the far-right, and was engaging with other QAnon believers on the internet, according to social media accounts linked to Mr. Comello from around the same time.
Mr. Gottlieb identified one of Mr. Comello’s accounts, RealAmericasVoice_ on Instagram, in his filing. The page has dozens of memes and written screeds, some that are difficult to decipher, including several posted days before Mr. Cali’s death.More than likely he was talking to Cali's niece and she told him that he was connected to the deep state.
One post accuses Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, of being a fascist. “Patriot sleeper cells are awake,” he wrote in another. Yet another refers to Bill and Hillary Clinton as “The Clinton Crime Family.”
How Mr. Comello came to associate Mr. Cali or the Gambino crime family with such theories remains unclear. Typically, the conspiracy group targets Democratic political figures, not the Mafia.
But Mr. Gottlieb said he believed Mr. Comello had encountered posts online that suggested Mafia figures like Mr. Cali were also connected to the deep state.
Mr. Gottlieb said on Saturday that he was sifting through “thousands and thousands” of messages, posts and forums that he said Mr. Comello might have engaged with.
The defense lawyer is also asking a judge to order prosecutors to provide details about anything found in Mr. Cali’s home or car when they were searched after the shooting, including whether any weapons were found on or near Mr. Cali’s body.Cali was a Mob Boss, you know he always had a gun on him.