Less than 24 hours after the body of 52-yr-old local businessman and accountant, Paul Mento, was found by housekeeping in Bay Ridge’s Best Western Hotel, the size of Mento’s gambling habit seemed to eclipse the rather strange and unusual method by which Mento chose to end his own life.

Investigators, who describe the hotel scene as undisturbed, with no signs of struggle, a body with no trauma or anything out of the ordinary – with only the notable exception of a man who apparently closed himself in his hotel bathroom, wrapped himself up with duct tape until he expired – will likely accept the findings of the ME and close this investigation, according to police sources close to this investigation.

The Post today, also citing ‘police sources,’ is reporting the same story that’s been in circulation since yesterday afternoon, echoing the ME’s findings – describing Mento as a man who fell under the weight of his addiction to gambling, asphyxiating himself ‘due to obstruction of the nose and mouth,’ with duct tape.

For Bay Ridgites however, not since John Rossi’s death of February 3rd, have locals heard of a ’suicide’ so ridiculous.

Some, sarcastically equating the ME’s recent findings to the Gregory’s previous hospitality fatality, by referring to the death of David Diaze as ‘death by excessive ventilation.’

However, for locals, unlike Rossi’s death – a scene which to observers read more as murder to imitate suicide – Mento’s scene reads more like a suicide executed by the deceased as if to imitate foul play.

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