Mob Hitman Caught in Fla. Week after Escaping

An Upstate New York mob hitman has been caught in Florida, days after escaping federal custody.

NBC reports Dominic Taddeo, 64, was captured without incident by U.S. Marshals and members of a regional fugitive task force on Monday in Hialeah, a city near Miami. The aging mobster had escaped federal custody last week when he failed to return to a halfway house near Orlando after an authorized medical appointment, officials said.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons placed Taddeo on “escape status” on March 28. It’s unclear what he was doing in Hialeah a week later, 273 miles from his assigned housing.

According to earlier reports, Taddeo was previously connected to a Rochester-area crime family. He pleaded guilty in 1992 to racketeering charges that included the murder of three men during mob wars in the 1980s, plus attempting to fatally shoot a mob leader twice and plotting to kill another mob figure.

Taddeo had been imprisoned at a medium-security lockup in Florida before being transferred in February to a residential halfway house, the Associated Press reported. A judge in Western New York had previously denied a request for compassionate release, which claimed hypertension and obesity put him at risk for serious complications from Covid-19.

The Democrat and Chronicle reported that in that denial, U.S. District Judge Frank Geraci Jr. noted Taddeo’s criminal record, writing: “Taddeo’s prior convictions are for crimes including assault, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, and, most notably, Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization (RICO) conspiracy arising from his employment and association with Rochester’s La Cosa Nostra organized crime family.

Prosecutors said medical records did not show that Taddeo was particularly unhealthy.

According to the D&C, Taddeo previously disappeared in 1987 when he was out on bail on federal weapons charges. He was found two years later after a national manhunt.

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