Ryan Walker Grant Update: Owner of topless club gets 10-year sentence in failed plot to kill Texas mayor
(CBS/AP) FORT WORTH, Texas - Ryan Walker Grant, the owner of a North Texas topless bar, has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison and a $17,500 fine for trying to orchestrate a plot to kill a mayor and an attorney.
Grant appeared Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means in Fort Worth.
Grant pleaded not guilty in September 2012 to a murder-for-hire charge stemming from a failed 2012 plot to hire a hit man to kill Arlington Mayor Robert Cluck and lawyer Tom Brandt, who does work for the city.
CBS DFW reports, Grant accepted a plea deal in which federal prosecutors dropped a weapons charge that was a part of the indictment. Grant had originally agreed to a 10-year prison term plus a $250,000 fine.
Grant's club, Flashdancer Cabaret, was one of Arlington's most visible adult businesses. Grant, at the time of the failed plot, was in a dispute with officials who cracked down on such enterprises as the city seeks to bolster its reputation as a tourist destination.
According to CBS DFW, Grant used his cell phone to contact the would-be hit man who was actually a confidential informant. Grant allegedly offered to pay the person $20,000 after the murders were completed. Grant was arrested in April 2012 after meeting with the man who he thought would carry out the hit.
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