Appeals court nixes 10-year plea deal in claimed contract hit attempt on family lawyer
An appeals court has nixed a plea deal by one of the men allegedly involved in performing a claimed contract hit attempt on a New Jersey divorce lawyer in 2002.
However, that means that all the original charges will be reinstated against defendant Vancleve Ashley, who had gotten a 10-year prison term for aggravated assault after it was determined that the evidence did not support an attempted murder conviction, according to the Asbury Park Press and Courthouse News.
Ashley admittedly was involved in a plot to beat up divorce attorney Peter Paras, according to a Wednesday opinion by an Appellate Division panel and his own court testimony. However, he insisted that the plan was never to kill the attorney.
Ashley said a former client offered $5,000 to have Paras assaulted. But the plan went awry when one of the men who came with him to execute the contract drove into Paras in the Jeep in which the group had arrived, outside his law office, the articles explain. The attorney survived, but suffered multiple fractures.
“Nobody paid [him] to commit murder,” Ashley told the court during earlier testimony, referring to a co-defendant serving an eight-year prison term for driving into Paras. “Nobody paid nobody to do no murdering with a vehicle registered to my wife.”
An accountant represented by Paras who lost a child-custody case was accused of offering $5,000 to Ashley to assault the attorney.
The ex-client was tried in 2009 on charges of conspiracy, attempted murder and aggravated assault, but the jury deadlocked, resulting in a mistrial. The government dismissed all charges against him in the Monmouth County case in 2011, saying that it could not prove the case.
Related coverage:
ABAJournal.com: “Ex-Client on Trial over Alleged Hit on Matrimonial Lawyer; Paralegal Testifies”
