Inmate Pleads Guilty to Hiring a Hitman to Kill the Witness and Prosecutor in His Case
A federal judge has accepted a guilty plea from an inmate who was accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill a key witness and a prosecutor from the case that put him behind bars, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for South Carolina.
Richard Gilbert, 52, was charged with murder for hire, money laundering, and retaliating against an informant, according to a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Greenville.
Gilbert was represented by a public defender in the case, Erica Soderdahl and the Federal Public Defender District of South Carolina, according to U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesperson Michael Mule’.
Phone calls to Soderdahl were not returned.
Gilbert’s plea calls for him to serve 262 months, or nearly 22 years, consecutive to the 130-month sentence he was already in federal prison for, according to an emailed press release.
