Being a federal judge is far from the easiest job on the planet, but we wouldn’t exactly call it dangerous. Of course, there we would be wrong, because federal authorities recently uncovered a murder plot against one federal judge: U.S. District Judge Joseph Bianco.
Joseph Romano, who Judge Bianco convicted of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud in 2009, tried to pay $40,000 to hire a hit man to do in the judge and the assistant U.S. attorney who led the prosecution in Romano’s criminal case. He wanted their heads preserved in formaldehyde as souvenirs. Fortunately for the judge, and unfortunately for Romano, the people he tried to arrange the deal with turned out to be undercover officials.
From a locked cell in Nassau County Correctional Center, Romano allegedly told a confidential informant about his desire to put out the hit. The informant told federal authorities, who sent an undercover agent posing as a hit man. Not one to jump into murder with both feet, Romano first asked the agent to assault an unidentified man as a test. After the agent returned with staged evidence of the assault, Romano told Dejvid Mirkovic, a former business associate of his who is also doing hard time, to instruct the agent to go ahead with the plot against the judge and the prosecutor.
Both Mirkovic and Romano face life in prison if convicted.
Read more at Thomson Reuters.
For more InsideCounsel stories involving undercover agents, see below:
Just another collar: White-collar defense lawyers adopt different tactics
