INQUIRER: A former stripper turned soccer mom, convicted of plotting with a South Jersey man to kill her fiance, was sentenced yesterday to 99 years in prison. Mechele Linehan, 35, was convicted of murder last year for orchestrating the murder of an Alaskan fisherman she had promised to marry. In January, John Carlin 3d, a love-lorn steelworker from Salem County, was sentenced to 99 years for shooting Kent Lippink outside Hope, a tiny mining community an hour from Anchorage. Linehan ordered Carlin to kill the fisherman, prosecutors said. The exotic dancer believed she would be the beneficiary of a $1 million insurance policy if Lippink was dead, prosecutors said. Anchorage Superior Court Judge Philip Volland called the 1996 crime premeditated, cold and cruel. Prosecutors said Linehan was inspired by The Last Seduction, a 1994 movie in which a woman coaxes her lover into killing her husband for money. MORE
ALSO: A former New Jersey official serving a federal sentence for accepting $30,000 in bribes was charged
today with trying to hire a hitman to murder his wife, authorities said. Richard Kaplan, 58, is a former New Brunswick city construction inspector and zoning officer who is serving a 30-month sentence in Cumberland County after he pleaded guilty last year to taking bribes from contractors. Kaplan wanted his wife dead because she was divorcing him, said Christopher J. Christie, U.S. Attorney for New Jersey. Shortly after arriving at the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton last spring, Kaplan asked a fellow inmate if he knew anyone who could kill his wife, Christie said. According to court papers, Kaplan said he would pay up to $30,000 for the slaying, which he wanted to be staged as a car accident.Last month, during a meeting at the prison with a “hit man” who was actually an undercover FBI agent, Kaplan offered a downpayment of $2,000 and said he would pay the balance when he was out on furlough for his wife’s funeral, Christie said. MORE