Sentencing guidelines for people who try to have their family members murdered should be stiffer, Carroll prosecutors say.
Mary Gates, of Westminster, tried to hire an undercover state trooper to kill her husband and was sentenced this week to five years in prison, the low end of guidelines that recommend between four and nine years.
“I think the guidelines are low,” said David Daggett, Carroll?s chief deputy state?s attorney, “but you?re talking about someone who is 47. One of the things you look at is the crime itself and also the person who?s committing it.”
Carroll Circuit Judge J. Barry Hughes sentenced Gates to five years followed by five years of probation because of her mental and physical state, Daggett said.
Gates had no criminal record before she was arrested last December on a charge of trying to hire a state trooper posing as a hit man to shoot her husband.
“She has no criminal history, which you normally wouldn?t see with a crime like that,” Daggett said. “She reached the age of 47 and had no prior involvement with the law.”
If Gates had been on the wrong side of the law even once or twice before, Daggett said her sentence would have been harsher.
She was charged with solicitation to commit first-degree murder and had twice last year tried to hire a hit man to kill her husband, Kevin Gates, before state police used a trooper to pose as a hit man and catch her, police said.
Gates offered the trooper $6,000 to shoot Kevin Gates in the head, according to the charging documents.
Daggett said he checked with Kevin Gates this week before agreeing to the plea deal.
Kevin Gates “was fine with it,” Daggett said.
He only wanted to make sure that Mary Gates would not be able to contact him or his sons after she is released, Daggett said.
