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Government To Pay Mobster To Settle Accidental Shooting Case

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By ELAINE SILVESTRINI | The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 27, 2009

TAMPA - The federal government has agreed to pay an undisclosed amount of money to a Massachusetts mobster who was accidentally shot by an FBI agent in Tampa in 2004.

Frankie Roche will receive the money to settle a lawsuit over his injuries, said his lawyer, Mark A. Sylvester of Miami.

U.S. District Judge James D. Whittemore today dismissed the lawsuit because of the settlement.

Sylvester said the settlement has not been finalized and its terms are confidential, although he wouldn't object if the government wanted to disclose the amount being paid.

"All I can say is under the totality of the circumstances, it was a fair and reasonable settlement for what happened to Frankie Roche, for his injuries," Sylvester said.

"There is a settlement, but at this point, the details are not public record," said Steve Cole, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office. "At some point they may become public record."

Roche pleaded guilty last year to a federal murder charge, admitting he shot and killed Adolfo "Big Al" Bruno, the regional boss of the Genovese crime family, in 2003, according to court records. Roche was paid $10,000 to carry out the hit.

Sylvester said Roche is cooperating with federal prosecutors and has either entered or will enter the witness protection program.

On Aug. 18, 2004, Roche was being arrested in Tampa on several outstanding warrants out of Massachusetts when FBI Agent David Street shot him, officials said. The Hillsborough State Attorney's Office ruled the shooting was accidental.

Officials said Roche was being handcuffed in his friend's home on Wood Trail Boulevard when he was accidentally shot in the back and critically wounded.

A firearms instructor and member of the Tampa FBI's SWAT team, Street was based in the FBI's Sarasota office and was the bureau's lead agent in the Carlie Brucia murder. The 11-year-old girl was abducted as she walked home from a friend's house in 2004.

Roche sued the federal government in 2007 saying he was shot while "handcuffed and face down on the floor, and in no way resisting arrest."

The lawsuit says he sustained "severe, life-threatening and permanent injuries."

Reporter Elaine Silvestrini can be reached at (813) 259-7837 or esilvestrini@tampatrib.com.

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