NY mobster who escaped federal custody in Florida captured

A New York mobster who escaped federal custody last week by walking away from a halfway house near Orlando was apprehended on Monday in Hialeah by the U.S. Marshals Service from the Southern District of Florida and the Florida Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force.

Dominic Taddeo, a hit man from a Rochester-area crime family, escaped on March 28, according to the Bureau of Prisons website.

Taddeo, 64, had been imprisoned at a medium-security lockup in Florida before being transferred to the residential halfway house in February. He failed to return from an authorized medical appointment and "was placed on escape status" on Monday, a Bureau of Prisons spokesperson said.

Taddeo pleaded guilty in 1992 to racketeering charges that included the killings of three men during mob wars in the 1980s.

A federal judge in western New York denied Taddeo’s request for compassionate release last year, rejecting his claim that health problems including hypertension and obesity put him at risk for serious complications from COVID-19. Prosecutors said medical records did not show that Taddeo was particularly unhealthy.

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