TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — A woman who tried to order murders from a Florida jail now faces more than a century in federal prison.
The Tampa Bay Times reports 51-year-old Priscilla Ellis was sentenced Thursday to 65 years, to start after she completes 40 years for a 2016 fraud conviction.
Ellis was convicted for her role in an $11 million fraud scheme. Prosecutors say she then began soliciting fellow inmates at the local jail to arrange the murders of one trial witness and the mother of another. A jailhouse informer worked with the FBI to secretly record conversations.
An FBI agent posing as a would-be hit man met with Ellis in jail. Authorities say she tried paying for the murders with $1,600 in counterfeit checks.
Ellis claimed entrapment and said she never intended to have anyone killed.
