Californian Man sentenced to 5 years for hiring a hitman

10/11/2022Cybercrime, USA

A Beverly Hills man who sought to hire a hitman to kill a lady he once dated and who kept trying to end their relationship was sentenced today to 60 months in federal prison.

Judge Mark C. Scarsi of the United States District Court handed down a sentence to Scott Quinn Berkett, 25. On June 13, Berkett entered a plea of guilty to one count of using interstate property to carry out a murder for hire. Since his arrest in this case in May 2021, he has been held in federal jail.

The victim and Berkett met online in 2020, according to the affidavit in support of a criminal complaint in this case, and the woman travelled to Los Angeles to meet Berkett in late October 2020. Following the October trip, the victim made multiple attempts to end the connection, according to the affidavit, who called Berkett’s behavior “sexually aggressive.”

When a family member called and texted Berkett’s father’s phone in April 2021 after learning that Berkett had kept in touch with the victim, Berkett appeared to have replied on April 20 by saying, “Consider this matter resolved.”

Soon after that, in April 2021, he contacted and paid for murder-for-hire services for a gang that allegedly advertised such services via a darknet website. Berkett gave the darknet gang detailed instructions and information about his victim. Berkett delivered the darknet organization bitcoin payments totaling about $13,000 as remuneration for the victim’s murder.

An undercover law enforcement agent who was masquerading as a hitman from a darknet organization approached Berkett in May 2021. Pictures of the victim were supplied to Berkett by the undercover officer. Berkett said that his intended victim was depicted in the photos and that he had used bitcoin payments to have her murdered. Berkett paid the undercover police an additional $1,000 and demanded proof of her murder.

“[Berkett’s] crime was not a momentary lapse in judgment, but a premeditated plot to kill the victim because she rejected his advances,” prosecutors argued in the sentencing document. “While attempting to take a life is atrocious enough, [Berkett’s] chosen method of carrying out the crime – using the Dark Web to hire a hitman and cryptocurrency – speak to his sophistication, meticulous planning, and attempts to anonymize his illegal conduct in the commission of this offense, and are aggravating in nature.”