Crime Time

Strip club owner gets 10 years for ordering hit on Arlington mayor; says 'I messed up'

Ryan Walker Grant, the co-owner of a now closed Arlington strip club, was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison for a failed plot to hire hit men to kill Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck.

Grant's lawyer said his client started abusing painkillers after a car accident in 2010 that left him with a fractured wrist.

Grant (above) tearfully told the federal judge presiding that he didn't mean to hurt anybody. He added that spending the last nine months in federal custody has made him a better person.

"I messed up," he said. "That's the bottom line."

Mayor Cluck (right) talked to reporters after the sentencing.

"It's been a rough nine months," the mayor said. "Our family still working through it."

Patrick Walker has the story.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/01/22/4566024/murder-for-hire-plot-targeting.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/01/22/4566024/murder-for-hire-plot-targeting.html#storylink=cpy

Sheriff Alford: Even in jail there's a little honor

A Johnson County jail inmate's time behind bars has been extended now that he is accused of trying to have his estranged wife killed. 

Tab Johnson (shown here) was already in jail for allegedly violating a protective order to keep him from the woman.

But sheriff's officials believe that didn't stop him from trying to hire a "hit man" to kill her, along with her boyfriend.

Fellow inmates took Johnson seriously and reported his intentions to jail officials.

Alford and Texas Rangers then devised a sting, with the sheriff posing as a killer willing to do the deed.

Now Johnson faces two counts of criminal solicitation -- murder.

Alford said the inmates did the right thing.

"They had a valid concern that [Johnson] was serious," the sheriff said. "So that just goes to show, even in jail, there is a little honor, yes, sir."

Read more in this report by Deanna Boyd and Bill Miller.

Read more here: http://www.star-telegram.com/2013/01/09/4536492/johnson-county-inmate-accused.html#storylink=cpy

Company: CFO stole to pay for murder of wife

A Tarrant County company has sued a Carrollton man, claiming he embezzled money to help pay for the failed attempt to have a hit man kill his wife, according to court records.

Raley Holdings, LLC of Grapevine filed the suit Friday in the 153rd Judicial District Court.

According to the lawsuit, John Franklin Howard, a 52-year-old accountant from Carrollton, was hired in 2009 to be the company’s chief financial officer.

But the company claims that from 2009-2011, Howard, a certified public accountant, engaged in breach of fiduciary duty and fraud to divert millions of dollars from the company’s bank in Kuwait to accounts Howard set up at a Colleyville bank.

"Presently, millions of dollars of these funds are unaccounted for," according to the suit.

Last month, Howard was arrested and accused of hiring a hit man to kill his wife, Nancy Howard, at their home in Carrollton.

She told detectives that she was in the garage when a man in his 20s approached her with a gun and demanded her purse. She survived a gunshot to the face, but lost an eye, according to earlier reports.

Dustin Hiroms of Van, the man accused of shooting Nancy Howard, was first arrested on a traffic stop, but he also told police that he was working as a hit man for John Howard, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.

Hiroms now faces a charge of aggravated robbery.

Detectives subsequently learned John Howard had been scheming since 2009 to have his wife killed and paid as much as $85,000 to do the job.

The civil lawsuit filed by Raley Holdings claims that John Howard wired money from one of the accounts he set up "to compensate individuals for illegal and improper acts."

The company, according to the lawsuit, "did not authorize these transfers and had no knowledge of these transfers."

The company also claims Howard "abused his check-writing authority by writing checks to himself" and changed company records to cloak the expenditures as "office supplies."

Howard, the company claims, "wrote at least $144,000 in such checks."

The company seeks injunctions against Howard and damages.

Howard was held in the Denton County Jail since his arrest, but he was released on bond Monday.

-- Bill Miller

Blotter: Burglar opens fire; C Man' pleads guilty

Here’s a round up of crime stories making headlines today on Star-Telegram.com:

Homeowner shot by burglar

A homeowner was in surgery this morning after he came home and found a burglar who shot him twice.

The incident occurred about 9:30 a.m. in the 5800 block of Jennie Drive in south Fort Worth, police said.

Officers were conducting ground and aerial searches for the suspect.

‘C Man’ the hit man pleads guilty

A self-proclaimed hit man who used the names "C Man" or "China Man," pleaded guilty on Monday to solicitation of capital murder as part of a plea deal with prosecutors.

Sengchann Xayasith, 38, of Irving, agreed to kill a man he believed was a local crime lord for $15,000.

His clients, however, were undercover Fort Worth police officers.

Argument over girl led to fatal stabbing in Arlington

An argument over a girl led to the killing of an Irving man near an Arlington bar early Sunday, Arlington police said Tuesday. The Tarrant County medical examiner's office on Tuesday identified the victim as Yong Nammeechai, 25.

He died from a stab wound to his chest and his death has been ruled a homicide by the M.E.’s office.

-- Compiled by Bill Miller from the works of Deanna Boyd, Dianna Hunt and Domingo Ramirez Jr.

 

Teen gets 20 years for trying to hire hit man to kill girl, 15

A Houston area teenager has been sentenced for 20 years in prison for soliciting a hit man to kill a 15-year-old girl who he thought was preventing him from getting back together with his ex-girlfriend.

The 17-year-old boy offered an undercover police officer $150 and $15 worth of the anti-anxiety drug Xanax to pull the hit off, the Houston Chronicle reported.

-- Lance Murray

Woman accused of ice-pick-for-hire killing of hubby's pregnant mistress

The plot: A man's pregnant mistress, a jealous wife, and an assassin with an ice pick.

Sheriff's officials in Washington state say those are the players in a real life homicide in which a 33-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of murder and manslaughter in connection with the ice-pick slaying of a 25-year-old woman who they said was having an affair with the woman's husband.

Lacy K. Hirst-Pavek is accused of paying $500 to have the "other woman" killed, authorities said.

-- Lance Murray

Woman tried to find a hit man on Craigslist, FBI says

Wanted: One hit man.

Federal investigators say that's the type of Craigslist ads a Michigan woman placed.

Ann Marie Linscott, 49, is under arrest for contacting several people through the online classified site, Craigslist.org in an effort to have a California woman killed. Twice, the feds say, she offered $5,000 to "eradicate" an Oroville, Calif, woman.

Authorities say that Linscott was having an online affair with the California woman's husband.

You can read more about this case at Sacramento TV station KCRA here. And you can watch the AP video report here.

-- Lance Murray

Teen accused of plotting a hit on his parents

No Playstation. No television. That was the punishment a Maryland teen received from his parents for his bad behavior and poor grades. The teen had a long history of behavior problems, officials said.

But imagine being called at home in the middle of the night and being told by police that your son was under arrest for plotting your murder.

Today, Cory Ryder, 16, goes on trial in a Maryland courtroom, charged with trying to hire a hitman to kill his mother and stepfather. They said that during a clandestine meeting at a hotel, Ryder offered an undercover police officer, who was posing as a hitman, his stepfather's new pickup truck as payment for the killings.

-- Lance Murray