Fugitive built prosperous shell

A Palm Harbor man who skipped sentencing on a drug charge in New York concealed his past for 16 years.

By LARRY DOUGHERTY

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 5, 2000

For exactly 16 years, Anthony Fanto lived with a secret.

Not that you could easily tell. Fanto earned a good living as vice president of a local security company. He lived in a subdivision in Palm Harbor and joined his homeowners association.

Perhaps the only clue was the dream house Fanto recently built in Manatee County. It had a remote-controlled iron gate and barbed wire.

But on Friday, the first day of year 17, federal officials came and ripped the cover off it all.

They arrested Fanto, 36, took him before a federal magistrate, and announced that Fanto's real name was Andrew Romano. Romano was 20 years old when he skipped his sentencing in a New York cocaine case in 1984.

At a court hearing Friday, his attorney pleaded for bail on behalf of Romano and Romano's upset wife and family. Romano's brother-in-law, a pulmonologist, offered to put up his home, which with other assets represented more than $250,000.

"This is obviously an old case," lawyer George Tragos said. "He really has been very stable."

But a federal prosecutor pointed out that Romano already had skipped on a $65,000 bond in New York. She argued for jail. The judge agreed.

"It was apparent a lot of effort went into finding him, living under an alias," said U.S. Magistrate Elizabeth Jenkins. "I'm denying the motion for bond."

On Tuesday, Romano will board "Con Air," the federal prisoner airline, to face the sentencing he missed on Aug. 3, 1984.

Court records indicate that investigators had been searching phone records for years in their hunt for Romano. But it wasn't clear what finally led them to him. A U.S. attorney's spokesman did not return a call seeking comment.

"He has been living a really good, solid citizen's life," Romano's attorney Tragos said after the hearing. "Something he did as a young kid has come back to haunt him."

The attorney advised a tearful woman not to answer a reporter's questions. Asked if Tony Fanto's wife had known of his secret, the attorney replied, "No comment."

In February 1984, Romano was caught in a Holiday Inn near Albany with $17,000 and cocaine. He was charged with distribution, and pleaded guilty. At sentencing he failed to show.

He soon came to Florida and met Deborah Sherline, whom he married in 1985. Reached by telephone Friday in Pittsburgh, Sherline said she had known nothing of Fanto's past.

"There's a pit in my stomach," said Sherline, a flight attendant. "You see those things on 20/20."

Sherline said she was 22 when she met "Andy" Fanto during a beach vacation in the fall of 1984. She described herself as an ugly duckling no one had paid attention to. "He was nice to me," Sherline said. "I was a classic case of immaturity."

Fanto said little about his past, or what had brought him to Florida. "He said he had a career change, and was off on vacation clearing his head," Sherline recalled.

They eloped and had a courthouse marriage. For a while, she was content to support him, while he stayed home in Palm Harbor without work. He would keep to himself or ride his motorcycle. Personal problems came up. The marriage wouldn't even have lasted three years, had she not been gone for the airline so much.

In 1998, Fanto got a job at Weiser Security in Pinellas Park, and was earning $120,000 a year at the time of his arrest.

"He's a good man, and I'm sick about it (the arrest)," said Mickey Weiser, president of New Orleans-based Weiser Security. The executive said that as vice president for sales, Fanto created jobs for hundreds of Tampa Bay residents as security guards in 12 years. Weiser said they do background checks on employees, but he knew of nothing amiss for Fanto.

Public records indicate that in 1995, Fanto married Tamara Christine Vasko. Soon after, Fanto bought an estimated 20 acres of land adjacent to a subdivision in Manatee County. A year ago, he began building a large house there. Neighbors heard from the builder it had high ceilings and a 20-foot fish tank, said neighbor Mary Pelchar.

Fanto and his wife and their dogs moved in around Memorial Day, about the time Fanto sold his house in Orangepointe subdivision in Palm Harbor. The driveway of the new place was so long, they used a golf cart to get their mail.

"It is very, very, very secluded," Pelchar said. "We've talked to him once or twice. He does wave, when he drives out in his (Lincoln Navigator) with dark windows."

"I'm shocked," Pelchar said. "It's certainly not something you'd guess from your neighbor."

- Times researchers Caryn Baird and John Martin, and Times staff writer Mattias Karen contributed to this report. Larry Dougherty can be reached at (813) 226-3337 or dougherty@sptimes.com

© St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved.