A notorious gangster who had turned his life around has been mauled to death by his friend’s pit bull.

Frank Monte, 59, was killed by his friend’s dog Bean outside a home on Staten Island on Sunday.

He died at the scene, and Bean was taken away by local animal controllers and euthanized, the New York Daily News reported.

In May, police raided the home where Monte would later be killed, uncovering pills and drug paraphernalia and arresting 53-year-old Anthony Iovine, according to the Staten Island Advance. 

Despite his past, Monte’s loved ones – including a friend who attended rehab with him – said that he had been committed to sobriety for the past eight months. 

‘He was getting his life together,’ Monte’s partner of 25 years, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Daily News. ‘What happened to him with this dog is a tragedy.’

The attack unfolded just after 4pm when Monte visited a friend’s house to pass the hour in between trips to a pharmacy. Several people inside saw the attack and called 911. 

Frank Monte, 59, was killed by his friend's dog Bean outside a home on Staten Island on Sunday

Frank Monte, 59, was killed by his friend’s dog Bean outside a home on Staten Island on Sunday 

Monte died at the scene (pictured) while the black pit bull Bean was euthanized

Monte died at the scene (pictured) while the black pit bull Bean was euthanized

Authorities subdued the pit bull with a tranquilizer while waiting for crews from the Animal Care Centers of NYC to arrive.

A law enforcement source told Silive.com that Monte was playing with the dog when it unexpectedly ‘turned on him.’ 

The dog’s owner lived in the basement of the home, and neighbors said Monte had often appeared afraid of Bean – especially knowing that the dog had bitten other people before. 

‘You could tell Frank was nervous around the dog,’ an unnamed neighbor told the Daily News. ‘Everybody’s devastated.’

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, another neighbor told Silive.com that the ‘big dog’ had been left outside in unsafe conditions before and had escaped multiple times in the past. 

‘The dog did go after some girl one time with a small dog,’ the neighbor claimed. ‘It’s not safe, we’re all afraid to walk by.’ 

Monte’s longtime partner told the Daily News that it remained a mystery why he would ever approach the dog in the first place. 

‘He would not go up to that dog. I am in total shock,’ she said.   

Despite his past, Monte's loved ones said that he had been committed to sobriety for the past eight months

Despite his past, Monte’s loved ones said that he had been committed to sobriety for the past eight months 

‘I don’t know if someone provoked the dog,’ she added. ‘I don’t go near that house. I know of that house that it is a troubled house.’

Other local residents shared similar warnings and admitted that they were unsurprised that such an attack happened on the property.

‘We knew it’s gonna happen. Everyday something happened in that house,’ a nearby business owner told Silive.com.   

Police are still investigating the attack, though no arrests have been made so far. 

‘Frank was a good man. He loved my daughter, took great care of her,’ Monte’s partner, who has a 34-year-old disabled daughter, told the Daily News.

‘He has traveled with me around the world, taking care of my daughter,’ she added. ‘I would trust nobody with my daughter, except Frank Monte.’  

Those close to Monte explained that, despite his checkered past, he was becoming a ‘good guy,’ regularly visiting his 96-year-old mother with dementia who was living in a nursing home.

In 2013, Monte was arrested in Oakwood Beach after prosecutors said he handed 300 small plastic bags of heroin to a buyer on Pelican Circle and Old Mill Road, according to court papers obtained by Silive.com. 

In exchange, he received $1,320 and was arrested and charged with both felony and misdemeanor counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance, as well as a felony charge for criminal drug sales. 

Although Monte acknowledged felony drug possession, he insisted he had no role in the sale, arguing that his prior drug offenses had led to a ‘biased’ view from law enforcement, according to the New York Times.  

Speaking to the newspaper in 2014, Monte said: ‘When you go to jail on Staten Island, you’re labeled for life with these cops.’ 

In 2014, following a St. Patrick’s Day drug bust on the Staten Island Expressway, he was sentenced to five years behind bars, Silive.com reported. 

Authorities stopped Monte’s 2011 Toyota Suburban for failing to signal and uncovered 531 envelopes of heroin in a plastic bag resting on a purse on the front-passenger-side floorboard, court records obtained by the outlet revealed.

He pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and, in December, received a concurrent five-year sentence after pleading guilty in an unrelated felony case for attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance. 

However, Monte was released on a $3,500 bond in the unrelated case and walked free.

Before the later arrests, Monte had already served two prison stints – one of which came in 1994 when he was convicted of two burglaries and sentenced to three to nine years in prison. 

In a separate case years later on the Island, he was convicted of felony drug possession and sentenced to 18 months in prison in January 2009.