CAUGHT: Notorious Contract Killer Who Escaped Feds In Florida

UPDATED: The U.S. Marshals Service apprehended Dominic Taddeo, 64, after he failed to return from a previously authorized medical appointment on March 28; the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force nabbed him around 11:00 a.m. on April 4 in Hialeah.

Dominic Taddeo being arrested
Dominic Taddeo 


As per a media release, Taddeo was transferred in February from a medium-security prison in Sumter County, Florida, to the halfway house and was scheduled to be there until his release in February 2023.

From 1990 to 1992 Taddeo was convicted of federal racketeering charges and pleaded guilty to multiple other cases involving weapons offenses, drugs, and enterprise corruption among other offenses which included the killing of three men on behalf of the La Cosa Nostra, a Rochester-area crime family.

Taddeo’s arrest is the result of a combined effort by the USMS Middle District of Florida, the Southern District of Florida, and the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force, checking multiple locations of interest for Taddeo within Florida before pursuing other leads throughout the rest of the country.

“The tenacious work of the involved deputy marshals and the cooperation between our offices resulted in the quick capture of Mr. Taddeo,“ said U.S. Marshal Bill Berger of the Middle District of Florida.

Taddeo was a notorious contract killer for mob bosses who wiped out three members of a rival faction of the Rochester Cosa Nostra family.

Taddeo, who pleaded guilty in 1992 in Federal court in Rochester to RICO crimes and was sentenced to 54 years, had a clean prison record and seemed to be focusing on using educational opportunities, as per a report on the Democrat & Chronicle.

In 1982, during a war that was splitting apart the Rochester crime family (which had once been part of the Stefano Magaddino family in Buffalo), consigliere Rene Piccarreto, who had ties to the Bonanno family, ordered Taddeo, a member of the "A Team" (as the media described them; the A Team was at war with the B-Team) to whack members of a renegade crew (dubbed the C-Team).

Taddeo killed Nicholas Mastrodonato on May 25, 1982 in a shop in Gates, New York. Three months later on August 27, Taddeo blasted Thomas Pelusio, who had been attempting to move in on Rochester gambling rackets. Taddeo also wounded Thomas Pelusio and killed his brother Gerald. The following year, Taddeo hit Dino Toratice on August 2, 1983 outside his home.



 
On April 13,1983, Taddeo shot capo Thomas Marotta seven times. Marotta survived the attempt, and Taddeo went after him again, about seven months later as Marotta was leaving his home. He survived the second attack as well.

On October 8, 1987, Taddeo was named in an affidavit as a suspect in the shootings. He had disappeared from view the previous March and many believe he had been hit himself.

Taddeo was arrested and returned to Rochester where he was arraigned on August 2, 1990. After pleading guilty in January 1992 to killing three men and wounding two others, Taddeo was sentenced to 24 years in prison. This was in addition to the 30 years he received after being convicted on RICO charges.

At a hearing before U.S. District Judge Michael A. Telesca, Taddeo acknowledged that a crime organization known as La Cosa Nostra existed in Rochester and that he was paid by the organization to kill certain people.




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