A U.S. lawyer has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for planning to kill his Zimbabwean estranged ex-wife and the mother of his children.
According to CBS, Allen Gessen (49) an attorney out of Massachusetts, paid someone he thought would arrange to kill Zimbabwean model Priscilla Chigariro.
He was sentenced on Friday, 26 April, in San Francisco, according to the U.S. Department of Justice Northern District of California.
Gessen first came into contact with an undercover FBI agent when he was being investigated for money laundering in the summer of 2022.
According to prosecutors, Gessen met with the undercover agent twice, and during these meetings, he volunteered information about his years-long dispute with Chigariro, his former partner, which had resulted in contentious child custody proceedings.
During his interactions with the undercover agent posing as a criminal, Gessen initially wanted him to use the connections he thought he had to have Chigariro deported.
However, according to prosecutors, Gessen’s objectives “quickly transformed from bribing an immigration official to deport his former partner” to “hiring someone to murder her.”
Gessen had initially negotiated US$100,000 for the bribery and deportation scheme but then decided he wanted Chigariro murdered and offered to pay $50,000 for the murder.
The court heard that Gessen wanted to kill Chigariro because he said it was “cheaper to get rid of her” and was a more permanent solution, and he also wanted full custody of their children.
He told the undercover agent that he had previously tried to hire people to kill her, but that they had increased their price to $210,000.
Eventually, Gessen sent $23,000 to an undercover FBI bank account in San Francisco in hopes that the murder would be carried out.
He also sent the undercover agent an agreement to pay for fake consulting services to cover up the true nature of the funds.
He then gave the agent information about Chigariro’s whereabouts, her schedule, and her lifestyle habits.
Gessen was indicted in July 2022 and was charged with one count of murder for hire and was convicted by a jury. He was given 120 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release.
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