A New York mafia hitman has escaped from federal custody in Florida and is now on the run, the Bureau of Prisons revealed on Friday.

Dominic Taddeo, a mobster connected to a Rochester crime syndicate in upstate New York, was being moved to a halfway house after previously being held in a medium-security facility in Florida that he was transferred out of in February. The circumstances of his escape are not yet known.

Taddeo, 64, has a criminal record that stretches back decades and includes instances of performing work for the mafia in Rochester. Between 1982 and 1983, Taddeo was responsible for murdering three people and he twice tried to assassinate a local mafia boss named Thomas Marotta, according to the Democrat & Chronicle.

In the years following the slayings, Taddeo was arrested on federal firearms charges and released on bail in 1987. He was not connected to the murders he committed until his second trial in 1992 when federal prosecutors convicted the hitman on racketeering charges that netted him 54 years in prison.

Taddeo’s violent acts took place during a time of infighting between Rochester-area crime families that began in the 1970s. During this time, rival crews vied for supremacy over the gambling and other illicit activities in the city, leading to a number of hits being aimed at mob bosses and associates alike.

Taddeo had previously applied for compassionate release in May 2020 on the grounds that he suffered health problems that made him susceptible to contracting COVID-19 in prison. A federal judge rejected the request, arguing that his culpability in past murders as a mafia hitman was enough reason to keep him behind bars.

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