Marissa Mark, 28, was living in Allentown in 2006 when she contacted a website called hitmanforhire to inquire about having her former boyfriend's new girlfriend killed.
After negotiating with the site's operator, she agreed to pay $37,000 to have an assassin gun down a woman identified as "A.L.R.," according to federal prosecutors. The woman was a mortgage broker in California, according to the plea agreement.
To get $19,000 to put toward the fee, Mark used stolen credit card accounts and paid the hit man via PayPal, according to the office of U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger. The target was not harmed.
However, the purported hit man, Essam Eid, 55, of Las Vegas, contacted the victim and identified himself as "Tony Luciano." At one point, he allegedly said she had paid him $20,000 to ensure her safety, according to prosecutors.
"He said that there were 700 men across the world in his hitman network, including his father," according to court documents.
Eid was later arrested in Ireland on another charge of being a hit man for hire, was sentenced to six years in prison, and was later extradited to the United States, according to the Irish Times. He is now facing criminal charges in federal court in California.
Mark pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia to conspiracy to use interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire, use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire, three counts of aggravated identity theft, attempted access-device fraud, and aiding and abetting.
PayPal discovered that the payments were unauthorized and stopped the money from being credited to Eid's account, according to the indictment.
Sentencing will be in December, and Mark faces up to 56 years in prison. She is free on bail but under electronic monitoring and confined to her home
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