16 years in murder-for-hire case
Woman tried to have her new husband killed
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A former Florida escort convicted of trying to hire a hit man to murder her newlywed husband was sentenced Friday to 16 years in prison, perhaps ending a drawn-out case that drew notice for its startling videos and salacious characters.
Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley imposed the sentence on Dalia Dippolito, who was convicted last month of solicitation of first-degree murder. She was recorded on video and audio in 2009 as she plotted to kill Michael Dippolito, telling an undercover detective she was “5,000 percent sure” she wanted her husband dead.
Kelley said Dippolito acted in a “cold and calculated manner.”
Neither Dippolito nor her family showed any reaction when the sentence was handed down.
Prosecutors believe she wanted control of the couple’s town house and his savings. The case gained national attention when police video from the investigation went viral on the internet and it was featured on the TV shows “Cops” and “20/20.”
A 2011 conviction and 20-year sentence were thrown out on appeal. A retrial last fall ended with a 3-3 hung jury. This time, it took the six-member jury 90 minutes to convict Dippolito, 34, who had a child last year while under house arrest.
Kelley said he agreed with the previous judge’s sentence but gave her four years’ credit for the eight years she spent on house arrest.
Typically, a defendant cannot be sentenced to more than the original time on a retrial because that would punish a defendant for winning an appeal. But prosecutor Craig Williams argued in court documents filed this week that Kelley, because he wasn’t the judge at the 2011 trial, could sentence Dippolito to the statutory maximum of 30 years if he found the original judge was too lenient.
Dippolito’s actions “are the most ruthless, cruel, inhumane, heartless and deliberate of any case,” Williams wrote. Dippolito “has earned every second of a 30 year prison sentence.”
Lead defense attorney Brian Claypool said in court documents that Dippolito deserved, at most, a fouryear sentence with credit for time served in jail and under house arrest. He said in a statement that Dippolito deserved leniency because Boynton Beach detectives railroaded her by playing to the “Cops” cameras in hopes of becoming famous.
“Cops” was coincidentally in town when the case broke and turned it into a special episode. It’s the same argument he and co-defense attorney Craig Rosenfeld used during the last two trials.