Philly man, 62, sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by N.J. political consultant

A 62-year-old Philadelphia man was sentenced Thursday in federal court to 20 years in prison for his role as one of two hit men hired by a New Jersey campaign consultant to kill a Jersey City man in 2014, prosecutors said.

Bomani Africa, who has been in custody since 2015, formally pleaded guilty a year ago to one count of conspiracy to commit murder for hire before U.S. District Judge John Michael Vazquez in Newark, N.J. Vazquez imposed the prison sentence on Thursday and also ordered five years of supervised release for Africa.

The consultant, Sean Michael Caddle, 45, also pleaded guilty a year ago to the same charge. Caddle had worked for years with former State Sen. Ray Lesniak as well as other prominent New Jersey Democrats. Caddle is scheduled to be sentenced March 22.

The other hit man was George Bratsenis, 74, who pleaded guilty to his role in the conspiracy last March and is scheduled to be sentenced March 29.

Prosecutors have not named the victim, but said the fatal stabbing occurred in a Jersey City apartment that was then set on fire on May 22, 2014.

On that same date, however, Michael L. Galdieri, 52, who also worked in politics and was the son of the late State Sen. James A. Galdieri, was fatally stabbed in a Jersey City apartment that was then torched.

Prosecutors, who did not mention a motive, described the victim as a longtime associate of Caddle who had worked for him on various political campaigns.

Prosecutors said Caddle in April 2014 solicited a Connecticut resident to commit the murder and paid that person several thousand dollars in cash up front. The Connecticut conspirator then recruited a “longtime accomplice” from Philadelphia, now identified as Bomani Africa.

A day after the murder, Caddle met with the conspirator in the parking lot of a diner in Elizabeth, N.J., and paid “thousands of dollars,” which the conspirator shared with Africa, prosecutors said.

A number of questions about the case remain unanswered: Why did Caddle want Galdieri, his onetime friend, dead? Why was he given house arrest after pleading guilty last year? And were the guilty pleas connected to other investigations?

Africa and Bratsenis also were charged with a series of bank robberies in Connecticut in 2014.

Africa was sentenced last week to a decade in prison for two of the Connecticut robberies.

Bratsenis was sentenced last year to eight years for his role in one of those robberies.

When details of the case became public last year, Galdieri’s brother Richard posted on Facebook: “I had given up. I thought for sure the day would never come. I had resolved myself to the fact that who ever did this to my brother got away with murder ... well ... almost 8 years later, at 7am this morning, 3 FBI agents rang my bell ... They got ‘em, Mike ... they got em.”

The Associated Press contributed to this article.