Imprisoned NY fraudster wanted witness killed
Some 27 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty. Hand, 39, was convicted in July 2010 of racketeering and other charges. He was sentenced in September 2010 to 8 1/3 to 25 years in prison.
“The case itself was filled with rats. Big-time. One — one got me pretty … good,” Hand fumed to the investigator when they met in August at Coxsackie Correctional Facility in New York’s Hudson Valley, according to prosecutors. “You don’t get a free pass in life when you put away 30 … people.”
Authorities had gotten a tip earlier that Hand was interested in arranging a hit, so they sent the undercover investigator his way, prosecutors said.
Hand laid out a detailed plan, telling the supposed hit man to block the witness’s driveway so he couldn’t escape, to kill the man’s wife and children if they were home at the time, to wear gloves and to leave no DNA, prosecutors said.
To get the investigator $150 to buy a gun, Hand told his parents and an associate he needed to bribe a prison guard to avoid being transferred to an undesirable cell, prosecutors said.