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Coral Springs Man Gets 30 Years In Prison For Trying To Have Witnesses Killed

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) – A Coral Springs man who was found guilty of trying to hire a hit man to kill four witnesses in his case will spend the next 30 years behind bars.

Munawar Toha was found guilty last year on all of the counts of solicitation of murder and received his sentence Friday morning.

Prosecutors said he wanted to kill four people who are going to testify against him when he stands trial for murdering his wife.

While in jail, Toha met inmate Oscar Izguierdo, who said he acted as the middleman and put him in touch with a so-called private investigator who would take care of four witnesses whose statements helped detectives build a murder case.

Toha didn't know the person believed to a hit man was really Fort Lauderdale Police Detective William Walker who secretly recorded his conversations with Toha.

Toha reported his wife Surya missing in April of 2010 and made a tearful public plea for help to find her. Detectives later uncovered surveillance video which, they say, shows Toha driving his family car into a canal behind his workplace at 4100 N. Powerline Road. His wife's body was discovered in the submerged vehicle.

According to police, she suffered multiple head wounds and may have been asphyxiated. A plastic bag was over her head when her body was found.

Toha still faces up to life in prison if convicted of his wife's murder. The trial date for his wife's murder has not been set yet.

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