A 45-year-old man charged in connection with a Mongols motorcycle gang killing was found unresponsive in his Pinellas County Jail cell with a bedsheet tied around his neck, according to a report citing authorities. Vincent Romanino was discovered unresponsive around 3:39 p.m. and later pronounced dead at a local hospital.
Romanino was pronounced dead at 5:03 p.m. after being transported from the jail, according to Tampa Free Press. Surveillance footage reviewed by authorities reportedly confirmed that Romanino was alone in his cell when the incident occurred, the outlet reported. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office described his death as an apparent suicide by hanging, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
Romanino had been in custody for about two weeks. A sheriff’s office account says he was booked into the Pinellas County Jail on Oct. 16 after being arrested on a charge of first-degree murder. The sheriff’s office Robbery/Homicide Unit is now investigating the circumstances of his death, per the same account from Tampa Free Press.
A Murder Case Tied to a Suspected Informant
Romanino’s name had already surfaced in Pinellas County’s criminal justice system in connection with a separate, earlier case. In 2023, he faced a charge of accessory after the fact to first-degree felony murder in the fatal shooting of Dominick Paternoster, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Authorities said at the time that Paternoster was believed to be a police informant.
The Tampa Bay Times reported that Romanino and another man, Joshualee Garcia, were members of the Mongols motorcycle gang when Paternoster was killed. The evidence reviewed does not detail how that 2023 accessory charge relates procedurally to the first-degree murder charge that led to Romanino’s booking this month.
A Pattern Seen Across the Country
Deaths like Romanino’s are not isolated within the national jail system. Suffocation, including hanging and self-strangulation, accounted for nearly 90% of suicide deaths in local jails nationwide during 2010 through 2019, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
Pinellas County’s jail has seen at least one earlier case with similar circumstances. In 2020, a 30-year-old Tampa man was found unresponsive in the jail’s housing area in what was described as an apparent suicide, the Tampa Bay Times reported at the time.
The sheriff’s office Robbery/Homicide Unit’s investigation into Romanino’s death remains ongoing, and further details about the circumstances have not been made public.
