Hitman in New Jersey murder-for-hire of political consultant gets 16 years

NEWARK, NJ – A profession legal whose rap sheet consists of financial institution robberies and a homicide conspiracy has been sentenced to 16 years in jail for killing a New Jersey political advisor in alternate for a refund in 2014.

George Bratsenis, 74, pleaded responsible a yr in the past to a cost that he and one other man accepted hundreds of {dollars} from one other political advisor, Sean Caddle, in alternate for killing Michael Galdieri. Galdieri was stabbed to loss of life in his Jersey Metropolis condominium, which was then set on fireplace.

U.S. District Decide John Michael Vazquez imposed the 16-year sentence Wednesday, plus 5 years of supervised launch n federal courtroom in Newark.

A person who served time in a New Jersey jail with Bratsenis within the early 2000s, Bomani Africa, additionally pleaded responsible within the killing and was sentenced final month to twenty years. He named Bratsenis because the confederate who helped kill Galdieri.

Caddle was well-known in northern New Jersey politics. His one-time purchasers included present Democratic U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez and former Democratic state senator and gubernatorial candidate Raymond Lesniak.

Caddle’s plea settlement referred briefly and opaquely to him offering investigators with info, however didn’t say what. He pleaded to conspiring to commit murder-for-hire in January 2022 and hasn’t been sentenced but. The U.S. lawyer’s workplace has declined remark, as has an lawyer for Bratsenis.

Questions nonetheless encompass the case over why the plot was put in movement, how Caddle was linked to the 2 ex-convicts and why federal prosecutors have mentioned so little concerning the crime.

Much less mysterious is the depth and breadth of Bratsenis’s legal previous.

Bratsenis served within the Marines from 1968 to 1974, after which started racking up convictions in Connecticut and New Jersey for drug, theft and weapons offenses.

In the summertime of 1980, in response to Connecticut authorities, Bratsenis conspired with a former Stamford police lieutenant and two different males to homicide a reputed drug courier, David Avnayim, whose physique was discovered within the trunk of a automobile west of New Haven.

Bratsenis wasn’t charged till 4 years later, however ultimately pleaded responsible to homicide conspiracy.

By the point he was charged with Avnayim’s homicide, Bratsenis was already behind bars, the results of a conviction for robbing a jewellery retailer in Little Falls, New Jersey, in 1983.

Whereas behind bars in New Jersey, he plotted an escape try wherein he deliberate to cover a bag of medication in his rectum and explode it throughout a courtroom look, forcing authorities to take him to a hospital the place gunmen would spring him, in response to printed studies on the time.

The plot was foiled and Bratsenis ultimately pleaded responsible to conspiracy.

By the late 2000s, Bratsenis was in Northern State Jail in Newark, New Jersey, having spent greater than 25 years behind bars. It was there, authorities in Connecticut alleged in courtroom filings, that he befriended Africa, from Philadelphia, and the 2 started planning to rob banks once they have been paroled.

Additionally housed on the jail throughout that point interval was James Caddle, Sean Caddle’s brother, though it’s not recognized whether or not he knew Bratsenis or Africa. James Caddle died in 2016, in response to an obituary posted on-line.

After being launched from jail, authorities mentioned Africa and Bratsenis robbed two Connecticut banks in Darien and Trumbull in 2014, together with one weeks earlier than Galdieri’s killing. Africa robbed a 3rd financial institution with one other man in Stratford later in 2014, prosecutors mentioned. Each Bratsenis and Africa pleaded responsible and have been sentenced to eight and 10 years in jail for the robberies, respectively.

The Related Press wire providers helped contribute to this report.