(CNN) — Dominic Taddeo, a mobster from Rochester, New York, who fatally shot three people and tried to kill two others, escaped from federal custody this week, less than a year before he was released.
Taddeo, 64, was transferred in February from a medium-security prison in Sumter County, Florida, to a rehabilitation center in Orlando, according to Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) spokesman Scott Taylor. He was scheduled to be there until his release in February 2023, according to court documents.
On March 28, Taddeo did not return from an “approved appointment” and was placed on an escape status, Taylor said.
The US Sheriff’s Service has been notified, the BOP said. CNN has contacted the agency.
CNN has also reached out to Taddeo’s attorney for comment.
Taddeo was nearing the end of several prison sentences for a series of convictions, including illegal weapons possession and racketeering and conspiracy in connection with the murders and attempted murders, according to 1992 filings in the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper. Rochester.
Taddeo pleaded guilty in January 1992 to the shooting deaths of three people in 1982 and 1983, and also to twice attempting to shoot a mob leader dead and conspiring to kill another mob figure, files show. of Democrat and Chronicle.
Taddeo admitted in court that a criminal organization known as “Our thing“which existed in Rochester, had paid him to kill certain people, according to news reports. La Cosa Nostra, or the Mafia, has been operating in New York since roughly the 1920s, according to the FBI.
In April 1992, the late United States District Judge Michael A. Telesca sentenced Taddeo to 24 years in prison, to be served consecutively on the 30 years he was already serving for drug conspiracy, bail fraud and illegal weapons possession. , depending on the file.
Taddeo filed a compassionate release motion in December 2020, citing the dangers of the covid-19 pandemic. A judge rejected the request and refused to shorten Taddeo’s sentence, citing the “seriousness of his crimes and his extremely long criminal history.”
“The defendant began a life of crime at the age of 16,” US District Judge Frank Geraci Jr. wrote in his decision last year. “His prior convictions of his are for crimes including assault, conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and, most notably, conspiracy to corrupt and mobster-influenced organization arising out of his employment and association with the La Cosa Nostra organized crime family of Rochester.” .
“The RICO charges involve the murder of three people, attempted murder of two more people, and conspiracy to murder a fifth person,” the judge wrote, adding that shortening Taddeo’s sentence would “undermine” the seriousness of the crimes.
Taddeo has been on the run before, according to the Democrat & Chronicle. In 1987, when he was facing federal weapons charges, he disappeared while out on bail and was found two years later following a nationwide manhunt, the newspaper reported.