The spouse of a celeb hairstylist will spend the remainder of her life in jail for having her lover kill her husband in what was supposed to look as a house invasion theft gone mistaken.
Monica Sementelli, 53, was sentenced to life with out parole Monday for the brutal stabbing of her husband, Fabio Sementelli, 49, of their Woodland Hills dwelling eight years in the past. A jury in April convicted her of homicide and conspiracy to commit homicide for masterminding the slaying on their Woodland Hills deck, the place certainly one of their daughters would later discover him wounded in a pool of blood.
Los Angeles County Superior Courtroom Choose Ronald Coen, earlier than announcing sentence, rejected a bid by Sementelli’s authorized crew to get her sentenced to 25 years to life in jail.
Fabio Sementelli suffered a number of wounds to his face, jawline, neck, chest and thigh and the truth that his $8,000 Rolex watch was left on his wrist when he was killed left detectives puzzled.
Blood from the crime scene was quickly linked to Robert Baker, a convicted intercourse offender and former porn star who started an affair with Monica Sementilli after serving as her racquetball coach at a West Hills health membership. Whereas prosecutors have painted Sementilli because the “mastermind” behind the slaying, as she stood to achieve $1.6 million in life insurance coverage payouts, Baker took the stand through the 2 1/2-month trial and insisted he killed the hair mogul for love.
“I murdered him as a result of I wished her,” Baker testified throughout her trial. “She had nothing to do with it.”
Baker was beforehand convicted of Fabio Sementilli’s homicide and in addition sentenced to life with out parole.
Throughout Sementilli’s trial, L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman introduced video proof that confirmed Monica Sementilli watching a dwell feed of the world shortly earlier than the assault to make sure Baker had a transparent path to her husband. Mitzi Roberts, a veteran murder detective with the Los Angeles Police Division, additionally testified that Sementilli and Baker exchanged 95 messages by means of an encrypted messaging app referred to as Viber on the day of the killing and 180 messages the day earlier than.
Whereas Sementilli denied all wrongdoing and publicly grieved her husband — an govt on the hair care firm Wella — she was concerned in a torrid affair with Baker. The pair sexted throughout her husband’s funeral, in line with Silverman, who stated the the brand new widow even despatched nudes to Baker through the service in Toronto.
Baker’s confederate, Christopher Austin, additionally testified for the prosecution and insisted Baker informed him Sementilli had directed her husband’s homicide. Austin, a former Oregon probation officer, stated he by no means spoke to Monica instantly, however Baker made clear his lover wished her husband “gone.”
“Every little thing he did, he did after he acquired a textual content message, which informed me he was speaking to her through textual content message.” Austin testified. “I didn’t hear him speak to her on the cellphone … however every thing occurred in sequence.”
Protection lawyer Leonard Levine insisted, “Adultery shouldn’t be homicide. … Every little thing she did was to guard the affair, to not cowl up the homicide.” He referred to as Baker a “Svengali,’’ saying that Sementilli made the “greatest mistake of her life’’ in turning into concerned in an extramarital affair with him.
