N.Y. Lawyer Gets 25 Years to Life in Murder of Client's Husband
A New York lawyer was sentenced today to 25 years to life for arranging for a client’s husband to be murdered 18 years ago during a bitter divorce trial.
Manuel Martinez, 57, was convicted last month of arranging to have George Kogan, a wealthy real estate investor and antiques dealer, shot to death, according to Newsday and the New York Post.
Martinez had originally left the state after the crime, but was extradited to the U.S. for trial from Mexico in 2007. For much of the past decade, he was in a Mexican prison on drug charges, the Post says.
Martinez had represented Kogan’s wife, Barbara, in a divorce case. Now 65, she was the beneficiary of more than $4 million in life insurance for her husband, but was never charged in the case.
Kogan was shot three times in the back as he was headed to his mistress’s apartment in the Upper East Side of New York City in 1990, the Post reported last month when Martinez was convicted. The hit man, apparently, was never found, according to the newspaper article.
