FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, June 29, 2017
Brooklyn Woman and the Hitman She Hired to Murder her Husband
Both Sentenced to Life in Prison
Wife Tried to Cash Out Life Insurance Policy Days after Killing
Acting Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez today announced that a woman and man from Brownsville, Brooklyn were sentenced to life in prison for their convictions in connection with a murder-for-hire plot in which the hitman was paid to kill the woman’s husband. The wife, who hired the co-conspirator after two previous failed assassination attempts on her husband’s life, tried to cash out life insurance policies under her dead husband’s name days later.
Acting District Attorney Gonzalez said, “With their premeditated and callous actions, these two defendants forfeited their right to remain part of our society. They planned and carried out the heinous and cruel execution of an innocent man for nothing more than pure greed.”
The Acting District Attorney identified the defendants as Alisha Noel-Murray and Kirk Portious, both 29, of Brownsville, Brooklyn. Each of the defendants was sentenced today by Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Neil Firetog to a life sentence without the possibility of parole following their convictions earlier this month to first-degree murder after a jury trial.
The Acting District Attorney said that, according to trial testimony, on February 24, 2013, at about 12:58 p.m., Omar Murray, 37, was shot three times and died inside his home, located at 204 Lott Avenue in Brownsville. The investigation led police to Damien Lovell, Noel-Murray’s boyfriend, who told investigators that his girlfriend had asked him to find someone to kill her husband after her attempt to poison him had failed. The first person shot at the victim on February 6, 2013, but missed, according to testimony.
Lovell then hired Portious and provided him with a $500 down payment and the gun, which he received from Noel-Murray, the evidence showed. The gunman was promised a total of $3,500. Noel-Murray had taken out nearly $900,000 in life insurance on her husband before the murder and attempted to cash out the policies within days of his death.
Lovell had previously pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for a promised sentence of 15 years to life in prison.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Assistant District Attorney Emily Dean of the District Attorney’s Homicide Bureau, and Assistant Distant Attorney Ebonie Legrand, of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Bureau, under the supervision of Assistant District Attorney Timothy Gough, Homicide Bureau Chief.
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