He was the target of a murder-for-hire plot. Now, he’s going to get money and a big move.
In December 2012, a retired, highly decorated U.S. Coast Guard warrant officer offered a man who worked for him his choice of either $20,000 or a kilogram of cocaine as payment for killing a Marathon real estate representative.
The good news for the real estate rep, Bruce Schmitt, was that the hit man was an informant cooperating with a federal cocaine smuggling case in which the retired warrant officer, Dennis Zecca, was the target. When the informant told his handlers at the Drug Enforcement Administration about the plot to kill Schmitt, the agents told the FBI.
The FBI contacted Schmitt and staged his murder, fake blood and all.
On Dec. 21, 2012, the informant met Zecca at the Marathon Boatyard and Marina, in which he was part owner at the time, and showed him a photograph of Schmitt, supposedly dead, lying in blood. Zecca, whose last assignment was commanding Station Islamorada, got in his car to get the money he owed the informant and was arrested by FBI agents.
In a deal with federal prosecutors that continues to anger and puzzle Schmitt, Zecca, now 58, pleaded guilty in 2014 to attempted murder for hire and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.
He originally faced life on cocaine smuggling charges, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office dropped them in exchange for his guilty plea on the plot to kill Schmitt.
What prosecutors didn’t get in return was information leading to the arrest of the person who tasked Zecca with arranging the plot. Schmitt says that man is Ralph Lucignano, a businessman now in his 80s whose financial interests at the time were in conflict with several businesses Schmitt represented.
Schmitt was working for retailers, including Publix and Walgreens that wanted to sell liquor, beer and wine in Marathon. That would have put a significant dent in Lucignano’s business, Marathon Deli and Liquor, which at the time was the only package store within 20 miles of the center of Marathon. Schmitt contends this prompted Lucignano to put a contract out on him.
Zecca, Schmitt says, was just the middleman.
One of Lucignano’s attorneys, Joseph Klock, calls the claim “ridiculous.”
Nevertheless, Lucignano signed a settlement last week in a lawsuit filed by Schmitt in 2016, that also includes Zecca as a defendant, which will likely end up costing him well over $1 million.
“Apparently my life is worth more than a kilo of cocaine,” Schmitt, 70, said in an email Wednesday.
And, as part of the settlement, Lucignano agreed to move out of Marathon.
Klock said despite agreeing to the deal, his client had no involvement in the 2012 plot to kill Schmitt.
“There’s no basis to the lawsuit. It’s ridiculous,” Klock said. “You get to a certain age, and you don’t want to deal with these things.”
“I told him, ‘You either pay us, or you pay Schmitt. And, if you pay us, you may not get rid of Schmitt,” Klock said.
The specifics of the settlement, according to the document released to the Miami Herald Wednesday:
Lucignano will pay Schmitt three installments of $100,000.
▪ He will sell his 3,290-square-foot waterfront home on Calle Ensenada, which, according to the real estate website Zillow, is valued at $2.2 million.
▪ Schmitt’s wife, Ginger Henderson, a real estate agent who once dated Lucignano — which Schmitt contends is another reason he wanted him dead — will receive a 10 percent commission of the sales price, plus a $50,000 finder’s fee upon closing.
▪ When Lucignano buys another home, Henderson will receive a 3 percent commission on that sale.
▪ If Lucignano sells any of the three business properties he owns in Marathon, Henderson will receive a 10 percent commission on those individual deals.
“I couldn’t get Ralph to go to prison, but I’m getting him out of Marathon,” Schmitt said in a telephone interview.
Although Schmitt settled with Lucignano, his lawsuit against Zecca still stands, and the legal action also includes two other people, named in the suit as John Doe 1 and 2. Based on recorded conversations the informant had with Zecca the day of the bogus hit, several people may have been involved in the scheme.
According to transcripts of that conversation the FBI only unredacted in 2018, Zecca told the informant he didn’t have the money and had to get it from someone. The informant asked, “Who, Ralph?” Schmitt said the informant was referring to Lucignano
Zecca replied to the informant, “It ain’t Ralph. I gotta go to Ralph’s people.”
This story was originally published December 19, 2019 at 6:19 AM.
