Below the Nazi symbols in his east side New Haven living room, they predicted the assassination of the president. They discussed rolling a homemade bomb toward black kids in a city playground. Then Joe Anastasio moved in to buy guns and grenades — with a secret camera hidden inside his jacket.
He’s worn that jacket since the Army issued it to him at Fort Knox in the mid-1970s. This time Anastasio was on a different government mission: going undercover to help put allegedly violent white supremacists behind bars.
Anastasio has plunged into missions like that for the past 15 years. He has frequented New Haven bars to score drugs or place bets to help the government bust dealers and bookies.
His work in this latest white supremacist undercover mission produced results.
Two members of the group he infiltrated — formerly known as the White Wolves, then rechristened Battalion 14 — pleaded guilty to federal charges of participating in a conspiracy to traffic weapons to a national group affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan.
Then, on Wednesday, a federal jury found Alexander DeFelice — the 33-year-old Milford man whom Anastasio caught on camera selling him a sawed-off shotgun and three homemade hand grenades — guilty of various charges that could land him behind bars for up to 65 years.
The same jury delivered not-guilty verdicts to two other defendants, one of them the hate group’s Ansonia-based alleged leader.
It was a victory for the feds. Not so much for Anastasio. To him, three out of five didn’t add up to “mission accomplished.”
“Not good enough for me,” the 53-year-old retired Southern Connecticut State University food worker said in a post-verdict interview Wednesday, during which he reflected on his second career as an undercover informant. “I took it personal. The leader is still out there.”
“These meetings happen in New Haven, in Ansonia — conspiracy to kill the president,” he said. “Let this be an awakening. People need to be more vigilant.”
