SULTAN — The Romanian man police believe was trying to hatch a murder-for-hire plot in Sultan allegedly said the assignment was worth about $10,000.
Florentine G. Minescu, 42, was arrested Thursday. No one was injured and police said the intended victim was safe.
Snohomish County sheriff’s detectives first learned of the plan on Feb. 7, according to a police affidavit filed Friday in Everett District Court. The document was released Tuesday after information about witnesses was redacted.
Minescu allegedly tried to hire his roommate for $8,000 to $10,000 to kill a friend’s wife, police said. The roommate told police that Minescu said the woman who was being targeted was a drug addict and nobody would miss her if she were killed.
The roommate went to police to warn them of the plot. He also volunteered to use a device to secretly record his conversations with Minescu, police said.
A detective then went undercover to pose as an assassin. The undercover officer met Minescu in Monroe. Minescu allegedly discussed his drug use and said he’d married and divorced a woman from the Snoqualmie Indian Tribe who now lives in Egypt. His children still are in Romania and he said he was planning to move to Philadelphia.
The detective obtained a judge’s permission to tap Minescu’s phone and recorded a conversation about a potential killing. Minescu allegedly said he expected to earn as much as $2,000 by acting as a middleman to arrange the hit, police said.
After his arrest, Minescu told detectives the man who wanted his wife killed had approached him two years ago and again in the past few weeks to solicit Minescu to carry out the killing.
Minescu was charged Tuesday in Everett District with first-degree soliciting murder. He remained behind bars at the Snohomish County Jail in lieu of $1 million bail.
Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437, jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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