Attorneys Say Client "Entrapped" By Boynton Beach Police
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BOYNTON BEACH (CBSMiami) – Attorneys for Dalia Dippolito believe they can prove that their client was a victim of entrapment by the Boynton Beach Police Department.
They questioned the undercover informant who turned her in in hopes of getting the charges against her thrown out.
Dippolito sat through the court hearing Tuesday afternoon. Her attorneys questioned Mohamed Shihadeh -- a former boyfriend of Dippolito's who went to police in 2009 to tell them that Dippolito wanted to hire someone to kill her husband Michael.
Shihadeh said police pressured him to go forward with a criminal case against Dippolito and he feared he might be arrested if he didn't.
Nothing did happen to Michael Dippolito.
Police said an undercover detective pretended to be a hitman and the cops staged a crime scene to make it look like Michael had been murdered. They captured Dalia's reaction and the case made headlines coast to coast as she was arrested.
She was convicted at trial and sentenced to 20 years in prison but an appeals court tossed out the case because of reported issues at jury selection.
On Tuesday, the informant said police went overboard with the case.
"They told me if something happened to husband, it would fall back on me," said Shihadeh when asked if police were trying to make him feel guilty.
"The bbpd broke all the rules and they violated Mrs. Dippolito's constitutional rights. It can't get much worse than this," said her attorney Brian Claypool.
Defense made a claim that the informant threatened Dalia Dippolito with a gun inside a restaurant in effect forcing her to go forward with the hiring of a hitman to try and kill her husband. The informant said that did not happen.
Defense attorneys also said police forced the case to go forward because they were working on an episode with the TV show "Cops."
The judge will have another hearing on this issue in February before ruling on whether to dismiss the charges against Dippolito.
