Law enforcement authorities learned of Romano’s plot to kill an attorney and the judge in August 2012 from another inmate at the Nassau County Correctional Center. The informant reported that Romano said he wanted to torture and kill the judge and attorney, and asked him for assistance in arranging for a hit man to carry out the murders.

According to the FBI and the U.S. attorney’s office, Romano agreed to pay $40,000 to have the two people killed, and also requested that the hit man cut off their heads.

“A threat against a member of the criminal justice system, such as a judge or an attorney,” said U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul Jr. of the Western District of New York, who announced the sentencing, “is nothing less than an attempt to subvert the system, and as such will not be tolerated.”

During the investigation, two undercover law enforcement officers, posing as hit men, met with Romano and Mirkovic numerous times at locations on Long Island, including the Correctional Center, the release said. According to the indictment, the meetings occurred between August and October 2012.

The release states that at the first meeting, Romano asked one of the undercover officers to assault someone as a test, for which he would be paid $3,000, before agreeing to hire him to carry out the murders, and provided them with the name of a person with whom he had a financial dispute. Mirkovic then met with one of the undercover officers and paid him $1,500 as a down payment for the assault. After one of the officers showed Mirkovic a staged photograph and an identification card, Mirkovic paid the officer the $1,500 balance.

Later, meeting with the undercover officer again, Mirkovic relayed Romano’s instructions to murder the judge and prosecutor, and indicated that Romano wanted them beheaded and the body of the prosecutor mutilated, and was willing to pay extra for those services.