Pittsburgh Murder For Hire Suspect Denied Bail
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- 52-year old Bradley Lanese of Pittsburgh was denied bail today, when he appeared before a Federal Judge in Pittsburgh.
READ MORE: Pittsburgh Man Facing Charges In Murder-For-Hire Plot
He's charged in a murder-for-hire scheme ---- plotting to hire a man to kill his cousin's wife. Turned out, his contacts were undercover Federal agents, who blew the whistle on him. He was arrested at his home last Friday.
Federal prosecutors say Lanese, his cousin, and the wife ran a marijuana grow operation in northern California until he was told to pack up and leave, and given nearly 30 thousand dollars.
After he was given the boot, Lanese returned to his Brookline home, but his anger festered; he became increasingly bitter, and instead of following through with his original plan to rob his cousin's marijuana farm. The government says he decided it would be better to have someone inject his cousin's wife with a fatal drug overdose, then push her car ----- with her in it ----- off a cliff, into the Pacific Ocean.
Today, in court, an Assistant US Attorney played parts of Lanese's phone conversations with an undercover agent, talking about the robbery plot, to bolster the government's case to keep the murder-for-hire suspect locked up.
Lanese is overheard says "I know they have a safe, I know they always got between $30,000 and $40,000 dollars in it. I'm going to brake their [expletive] fingers when it's over, I'm going to brake their fingers, and his knees."
No trial date has been set.