Conviction Upheld In Dalia Dippolito Murder-For-Hire Plot
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TALLAHASSEE (CBSMiami/NSF) - In a case that has drawn national attention, an appeals court Wednesday upheld the conviction of a Palm Beach County woman accused of trying to use a hit man to kill her then-husband.
A three-judge panel of the 4th District Court of Appeal rejected arguments raised by attorneys for Dalia Dippolito, who was convicted on a charge of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Dippolito was accused of plotting in 2009 to kill her then-husband, Mike, after her lover reported the scheme to Boynton Beach police.
During an investigation, police made recordings of conversations between Dippolito and her lover and between Dippolito and the purported hit man, who was an undercover officer.
In the appeal, Dippolito's attorneys argued, in part, that police improperly entrapped her, including by involving the television show "Cops" in the case.
"With respect to the 'Cops' television filming, the police did not involve the show in the surveillance or investigation of appellant (Dippolito) until after appellant had already taken all the steps to solicit the murder of her husband," said the ruling, written by appeals-court Judge Martha Warner and joined by judges Cory Ciklin and Spencer Levine.
"It was only at the point that she was being arrested, after the crime was complete, that the television program filmed the arrest. As the crime of solicitation to commit murder was completed before 'Cops' was involved, the agreement between the police and the show with respect to the filming did not constitute a due process violation." Dippolito's attorneys also argued during the appeal that the trial judge had improperly allowed evidence about an earlier attempt to poison her husband with antifreeze. But the appeals court also rejected that argument.
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