Some people will go to any length to get what they want. They will lie, cheat, steal, commit fraud, and, on rare occasions, kill or plan to murder someone to achieve their self-centered goals.
While some people are wily enough to get away with their crimes, not everyone is successful.
Those who get caught out find themselves in police custody, getting trialed before a judge and jury, and, when proven guilty, facing a lengthy jail sentence.
That’s precisely what happened to Dalia Dippolito, a conniving woman from the US state of Florida who attempted to hire a hitman to kill her husband.
Who Is Dalia Dippolito?
Delilah Mohammed was born to a mixed-race couple in October of 1982. She grew up in a family environment that consisted of her Egyptian father, Peruvian mother, and two younger siblings.
The family resided in New York City until Delilah was thirteen when the family relocated to Boynton Beach in Florida. While Delilah’s childhood continued in a normal manner, it would later appear that she was less than content with her lot in life.
By her late teenage years, Delilah had developed a liking for the finer things in life and wanted as much money as she could get.
Delilah adopted the name Dalia and began working as an escort, hoping she’d meet the type of wealthy man who would improve her financial and social standing.
While it didn’t take her long to find someone who could provide her with what she wanted, by her mid-twenties, that beneficial relationship had ended.
Even though she’d managed to obtain a real estate agent’s license and a couple of lovers who wined, dined, and pampered her with gifts, Dalia continued her work.
It would be one call for her escort services that changed her life forever and not for the better. That call for her services came from a man named Michael Dippolito.
Who Is Michael Dippolito?
Even though he was a married man, Michael Dippolito had a penchant for women on the side. One day, when his then-wife was out of town visiting her family, he called a number he’d obtained and summoned Dalia Mohammed to his office in Boca Raton.
Whether it was love at first sight or just lust at that initial meeting, only Michael and Dalia know for sure, but within days, they were involved in a passionate affair.
Just a few weeks later, Michael had left his wife and filed for divorce so he could marry the twenty-six-year-old woman he’d only just met.
Unknown to him at the time, not long after Michael Dippolito made Delilah Mohammed Mrs Dippolito, he would become the focus of a scandalous and criminal attempt to end his life. It wasn’t his first brush with criminal activity, but it was the first time he would be in the victim’s shoes.
Who Did Dalia Dippolito Marry?
When Dalia Mohammed met Michael Dippolito in October 2008, he already had a criminal record.
In 2002, Michael Dippolito was convicted of telemarketing fraud in which he swindled people out of substantial amounts of money by getting them to falsely invest in foreign currencies.
After a repentant Dippolito was released from jail, he established an apparently legitimate online business. It was, by all accounts, a profitable one that allowed him to purchase a deluxe home, in cash, for himself and Dalia.
Michael Dippolito was still on probation when he started married life with Dalia, and as ordered by the courts during his sentencing, he was obliged to pay back the money he had defrauded.
He complied with the order to some degree by sending minimal monthly amounts to his victims.
Rather than pay back the people he’d cheated out of their savings in full, which he could have done, Dippolito transferred large amounts of money to Dalia, which she kept in an account under her maiden name.
By this time, Dippolito had also moved the deeds to the house to Dalia’s name.
Why Did Dalia Dippolito Hire An Assassin To Kill Her Husband?
After those transactions had been completed, it wasn’t long before Michael Dippolito began to experience unexpected problems with the police.
On two occasions, he was stopped, and his car searched after the police had received anonymous information saying he was dealing narcotics.
Those incidents were followed by Dippolito receiving a blackmail note insinuating that something untoward was about to happen to him.Dippolito had started to worry that his past dealings with a local Mafia gang had come back to haunt him.
Afraid the gang was planning a revenge killing with him as the victim, he reported the incident to the police. Nobody, including Michael or the police, suspected Dalia of being involved with either planting the drugs or making the blackmail attempt.
It was when her less lethal plans to get rid of her husband failed that Dalia Dippolito started to search for a hired hitman to do the job for her.
Dalia Dippolito’s attempts to hire an assassin to shoot her husband were clumsy. The first person she approached to commit the dirty deed for her was one of her ex-partners.
That person, who remained anonymous throughout the scandal that would eventually unfold, refused to help her, as did two others she initially approached.
Determined to get her own way, Dalia began an affair with a Californian man and, once she had him under her spell, attempted to persuade him to shoot her husband by offering him a cash payment.
He refused, but she continued to insist, and realizing she really was deadly serious about getting her husband shot, the man reported her to the police.
How Dalia Dippolito Was Brought To Justice
Being informed about Dalia Dippolito’s intention to have her husband assassinated wasn’t evidence enough for the police to press charges. They needed proof of what she was planning. With the help of her lover-informant, they set up a complicated sting operation.
After rigging Dalia’s lover’s car with concealed cameras and microphones, they were able to record her talking about her plans and continuing to attempt to enveigle her lover to commit the crime. Although it probably could have, the operation to incriminate Dalia didn’t end there.
As Dalia continued to display her determination to hire a hitman, her lover said he would get someone he knew who had a history of doing hit jobs to contact her. The hitman who contacted her wasn’t a hitman but an undercover cop.
In a recorded meeting with the undercover police officer, Dalia detailed what she would pay to get the job done and described Michael Dippolito’s daily routine to the officer. A date was set for the hit, but it wouldn’t turn out to be quite the hit that Dalia had expected.
The police wanted to be 100% sure they had enough evidence to convict Dalia Dippolito and began the final stage of the set-up.
After Dalia had left the house on the day the hit was supposed to go down, Michael Dippolito was informed what Dalia had been planning and was taken from their home and placed in a safe house.
The police then proceeded to make the Dippolito’s house look like a crime scene. Dalia was then contacted by the police and told her husband had been shot dead.
While playing the role of the grieving widow, the police took Dalia to the precinct on the pretext of questioning her to help with their investigation into her husband’s murder.
Once they had her in custody, she was presented with the evidence they had collected against her. She didn’t change her story until she was told Michael was still alive and she was face to face with the undercover officer she’d hired as a hit man.
What Happened To Dalia Dippolito?
Dalia Dippolito was charged with solicitation to commit first-degree murder, stood trial, and was convicted. She is currently serving a twenty-year jail sentence in the Lowell Correctional Facility in Marion County, Florida.
There have been several retrials and various appeals made against her sentence since she was incarcerated, but to date, she remains guilty as charged and is behind bars.
There’s an old saying that goes – marry in haste, repent at leisure. That’s a saying that’s applicable to the story of the Dippolitos. Maybe before he marries again, if he ever does, Michael Dippolito will get to know his bride a little more in-depth than he did Dalia.
For Dalia, twenty years languishing in jail is a long time to contemplate her actions, and as she’s probably already realized, money isn’t worth a dime if you’re not free to spend it.
Sources
https://readysteadycut.com/2023/07/03/where-is-mike-dippolito-now
https://abcnews.go.com/US/dalia-dippolito-managing-prison-life-legal-teams-hope/story?id=70638556
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cops_(TV_program)#Impact_on_the_Dalia_Dippolito_case
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