A man whose murder-for-hire plot to kill a Bel-Air man and two others was foiled when the hitman he contacted turned out to be an FBI agent was sentenced on Monday to six years in federal prison.
Eugene Darryl Temkin, 51, of Goleta, was sentenced in connection with orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot that stemmed from a decade-old business dispute with his former business partner, Michael Hershman, Hershman’s wife, and Hershman's business partner.
Following a trial in August, United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson found Temkin guilty of soliciting a crime of violence, attempting to interfere with interstate commerce by threats and violence, and using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire.
“He was given every opportunity to back out -- but he continued to press it,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada said outside court, according to City News Service.
Prosecutors said Temkin engaged in “criminal conduct of the worst sort” with “meticulous planning.”
Temkin agreed to pay a hitman, identified in court documents as “Pavel,” but who was an undercover FBI agent to first torture, then kill, three people, prosecutors said.
He also wanted to extort $15 million from them to compensate for what he said were losses he from a failed business plan for a casino in Africa.
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The investigation began in late 2009 when a source tipped off law enforcement to the plot.
Over the following months, undercover law enforcement, posing as professional killers for hire, met with Temkin to discuss how the plot should be carried out.
In the meetings, Temkin proposed various forms of murder, torture, and rape to be exacted on his victims, prosecutors said.
Before the murder scheme, prosecutors said Temkin had spent nearly 10 years harrassing and threatening the victims by hacking into their email, stealing their personal belongings and obtaining the victims’ personal information, including photographs and information about their children.
During the final meeting in Encino with a purported “hitman” on July 8, 2010, Temkin paid the undercover agent $3,000, which was the first installment of a $30,000 fee to extort and murder the victims.
According to the plan agreed on by Temkin and the undercover agent, the extortion and murders were to be carried out in Spain, where Temkin believed the victims were vacationing.
During the meeting, Temkin provided the undercover agent with, among other things, photographs of the victims, their address in Spain, and their identifying information, such as social security numbers and dates of birth.
Temkin also gave the undercover agent information he would need to deposit the $15 million extortion payment into a bank account Temkin had control of in Uruguay.
Temkin has been held without bond since his arrest in the summer of 2010.
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