The U.S. Department of Justice Northern District of California announced that a 49-year-old New York attorney received a 10-year federal prison sentence for hiring a supposed hitman to kill his estranged ex-wife and mother of his children. Allen Gessen, a New York-licensed attorney, was convicted of one count of murder for hire after a federal jury indicted him. Gessen arranged the murder with an undercover FBI agent, who had posed as a criminal. The target, Priscilla Chigariro, is a Zimbabwean model.

Introduced to the undercover FBI agent through a separate investigation into international money laundering, Gessen met the agent twice in the summer of 2022 in Boca Raton, Florida, and New York City. During these meetings, Gessen disclosed details of a lengthy dispute with Chigariro, including contentious child custody proceedings.

According to authorities, Gessen initially sought to bribe an immigration official to deport Chigariro but later shifted focus to hiring a hitman to murder her, deeming it a cheaper and more permanent solution. He wired $23,000 to an FBI undercover bank account in San Francisco to finance the hit and provided a written agreement for phony consulting services to conceal the transaction’s nature.

In addition to the prison sentence, the attorney was ordered to serve three years of supervised release after completing his term.