E-Paper
Wife receives life term in murder-for-hire in Ohio
A woman who was convicted of hiring her lover to kill her Indian doctor husband is sentenced to life in prison.
A woman who was convicted of hiring her lover to kill her Indian doctor husband was sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday.
A jury rejected a death sentence for Donna Moonda, 48, who prosecutors said promised her 26-year-old lover half of her husband's multimillion-dollar estate if he killed Dr Gulam Moonda, 69.
Donna Moonda's attorney asked the jury not to sentence her to death because she suffers from a personality disorder and because the shooter, Damian Bradford, was sentenced to just 17 1/2 years in prison.
Attorney David Grant told the jury that a life sentence in a maximum security prison was a severe enough punishment.
Moonda, was convicted of murder-for-hire and other charges in the May 13, 2005, shooting death of her husband along the turnpike south of Cleveland.
Bradford testified during the trial that he followed the couple from their Hermitage, Pennsylvania, home and shot the doctor in the side of the head after Donna Moonda pulled over on the turnpike, supposedly to let her husband take the wheel.
Assistant US Attorney Linda Barr told the jury that Moonda was more culpable in the crime than Bradford because she helped plan the killing, knowing her husband's financial worth.
