New York mobster caught after fleeing from federal authorities

Authorities on Monday said they caught Dominic Taddeo, a convicted New York mobster and hitman who had fled from federal custody last week.

Taddeo was serving a roughly three-decade sentence for multiple offenses — including killing three people during mafia wars in the ’80s. His sentence was set to finish by the end of 2022 before he escaped from federal authorities last Monday.

The U.S. Marshals Service from the Southern District of Florida and the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force said they nabbed Taddeo near Hialeah, a city in Miami-Dade County, around 11 a.m. on Monday, according to a release.

U.S. Marshal Bill Berger of the Middle District of Florida said they pursued leads across the country and combed through Florida after Taddeo failed to return from an authorized medical appointment following his in-state transfer from a medium-security prison to a halfway house.

“The tenacious work of the involved deputy marshals and the cooperation between our offices resulted in the quick capture of Mr. Taddeo,“ Berger said in a statement.

From 1990 to 1992, Taddeo, 64, was convicted on federal racketeering charges as well as multiple other offenses, including killing three men when he worked as a hitman for the La Cosa Nostra, a Rochester, New York, crime family.

Taddeo’s flight last week was the second time he has attempted to evade authorities. In the late ’80s, the mobster took off while he was out on bail for federal weapons charges, launching a two-year manhunt.

Before his transfer to a halfway house in Florida, Taddeo was an inmate at a medium-security facility in Wildwood, Fla., where he had made a request for a COVID-related release from prison. The judge denied his request.