Lara Gatz
!['[He] thought he was buying revenge. Instead, he bought the full force of the law.' — US Attorney Loretta Lynch on Joseph Romano (above)](https://vip.nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2013/08/joseph_romano-300x300.jpg?w=300)
‘[He] thought he was buying revenge. Instead, he bought the full force of the law.’ — US Attorney Loretta Lynch on Joseph Romano (above)
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A jailed Long Island con man plotted to have a hit man decapitate the judge and prosecutor who put him behind bars — and offered a bonus if the killer preserved their heads in formaldehyde as a macabre keepsake, prosecutors said yesterday.
Joseph Romano, 49 — sentenced in February to 15 years for a $40 million collectible-coin scam — and Florida business partner Djevid Mirkovic, 38, allegedly offered to shell out $40,000 for the diabolical plot against federal Judge Joseph Bianco and Assistant US Attorney Lara Gatz.
“Romano requested that the heads of both the judge and the [prosecutor] be preserved in formaldehyde as souvenirs,” FBI Special Agent Reynaldo Tariche said in a complaint filed in Central Islip federal court.
Romano “discussed in detail his desire to torture and kill” the judge and prosecutor “in retaliation” for their roles in his conviction and sentencing, said the agent. Romano was charged yesterday in Central Islip with the murder-for-hire plot.
He was even “willing to pay extra” if the hit man would “store them until Romano’s release from prison.”
He confessed to the crime before his court appearance, according to prosecutor John Durham.
“Romano thought he was buying revenge. Instead, he bought the full force of the law, along with a possible life sentence,” said Eastern District US Attorney Loretta Lynch.
Romano planned the hit from Nassau County Correctional Center, using other inmates’ phone accounts to avoid detection andwith Mirkovic acting on his behalf outside, according to a criminal complaint.
Additional reporting by Kevin Sheehan
Authorities learned of the scheme in August from a confidential witness, and sent in two undercover cops, one acting as a contract killer.
From Aug. 21 through last week, the undercovers held several meetings with Romano and Mirkovic, prosecutors said.
Initially, Romano paid the cop he thought was a hit man $3,000 to assault a one-time financial associate, promising “a big job, some serious work” if he completed the beating, prosecutors said. The undercover agent faked the assault to gain Romano’s confidence.
On Sept. 25 and Oct. 2, Mirkovic paid two installments, $12,000 and $10,000, on the contract to kill Bianco and Gatz, according to the complaint.
He allegedly promised to pay the $18,000 balance when the deeds were done.
That never happened. Mirkovic was arrested yesterday and arraigned in Florida. Authorities recovered $18,000 in cash and a loaded 9mm semiautomatic handgun at his Lake Worth home.
A raid on Romano’s Levittown home turned up another $9,000 in cash, authorities said.
Romano pleaded guilty to bank and wire fraud in September 2010. Prosecutors said he bilked more than $40 million from 1,500 victims over eight years, selling coins he claimed were of a higher grade than they really were at wildly inflated prices.
Most of his victims were elderly, and included an 85-year-old widow with Parkinson’s Disease who lost her $773,000 life savings.