Murder-for-hire retrial jury set; venue change rejected

Dalia Dippolito’s legal team promises an epic fight against state’s case.

WEST PALM BEACH — A salacious tale of a femme fatale, or a case study on just how far corrupt police officers will go for a taste of fame.

These battling scenarios will be on display beginning today for a Palm Beach County jury with Dalia Dippolito — easily Palm Beach County’s most infamous former-escort-turned-bride — at the center of it.

A jury selected Tuesday of five women and three men will begin hearing testimony in the case surrounding Dippolito’s caught-oncamera alleged 2009 plot to hire a undercover police officer who she thought was a hit man to kill her then-husband, Michael.

Dippolito’s defense attorneys, unsuccessful in a series of hardfought last-minute requests to move her case out of Palm Beach County, have promised an epic fight against the state’s case more than five years after another jury rejected Dippolito’s defense that she and her husband concocted the plot together in hopes of scoring a reality TV show.

“Trust me, this is by far not a slam dunk for the prosecution. We intend on fighting vigorously in this case, and finally telling chapter one through 10, and not just Watch video of Tuesday’s trial proceedings in the Dalia Dippolito case. a video, which is what the prosecution wants this case to be,” defense attorney Brian Claypool said Tuesday.

Although Assistant State Attorneys Craig Williams and Laura Burkhart Laurie won’t be playing for jurors the viral video of Dippolito crying fake tears at a staged crime scene, most of their evidence in the case centers on recorded conversations between Dippolito and a Boynton Beach police officer posing as a killer introduced to Dippolito by her sometime lover, Mohamed Shihadeh.

Publicity in the case featuring those recordings became a main concern for Dippolito’s attorneys over four days of jury selection beginning last week, and tensions rose Monday when it became clear Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley was determined to move forward with picking a jury even after several claims that prospective jurors knew more than they let on about the case.

Dippolito at one point said she recognized one court watcher, who later turned out to be the husband of a prospective juror, at her 2011 sentencing and other hearings in the case. The claim led Kelley to question the man and ultimately release his wife, who allegedly made a derogatory comment to two other jurors about Dippolito, from the jury pool.

Concerns over juror exposure

PHOTOS BY ALLEN EYESTONE / THE PALM BEACH POST Attorney Greg Rosenfeld (left), Dalia Dippolito and attorney Brian Claypool stand as Judge Glenn Kelley calls the husband of a juror for questioning during jury selection Tuesday at the Palm Beach County Courthouse. The husband was seen talking with...

The husband of one of the potential jurors in Dalia Dippolito’s retrial is called into court Tuesday to be questioned by Judge Glenn Kelley. The man’s wife was then released from jury duty.