Woman Charged After Hiring Hit Man From Hitmanforhire.com

A 28-year-old New Jersey woman hired a hit man from the website Hitmanforhire.com to gun down an ex-boyfriend's new flame, paying for his services through the Internet payment service PayPal using stolen credit cards.

In 2006, Marissa Mark, who was then living in Allentown, N.J., contacted a murder-for-hire from the website and requested that an assassin gun down a woman identified as A.L.R., according to a federal indictment unsealed on March 22 in Allentown. Mark ordered the Las Vegas-based hit man to travel to Southern California, where A.L.R. lived.

After haggling over the cost, Mark agreed to pay $37,000 for the assassination . On Sept. 12, 2006, Mark made a $19,000 down payment to the hit man through PayPal.com, using three stolen credit cards. According to the indictment, PayPal verified that the payments were unauthorized and stopped the money from being credited to the hit man's account.

Identified as Person #1 in the court documents, the hit man whose full-time job was dealing poker at the Las Vegas hotel Bellagio flew to California anyway and paid A.L.R. a visit. But instead of killing her, he handed A.L.R. a note that read, "Somebody wants your head. Somebody wants you killed and they hate you a lot," the Las Vegas Sun reports.

After showing A.L.R. e-mails to support his claim, he explained that he couldn't carry out Mark's assignment because A.L.R. reminded him of his own daughter. He then offered to instead kill Mark if A.L.R. would pay the balance on the original contract, according to the Las Vegas Sun. When A.L.R. turned down the offer, Person #1 said that A.L.R. could save her own life by paying the $37,000. He gave A.L.R. a week to come up with the money.

Instead, A.L.R. called the police. The hit man was later captured in Ireland after another botched attempt to contract for a killing and was convicted of extortion and assorted theft charges. On March 22, Mark was arrested in Jersey City on multiple conspiracy and identity theft charges.

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