S.C. inmate to plead guilty in revenge murder-for-hire plot

EDGEFIELD (AP) — An inmate at a South Carolina federal prison is set to plead guilty Tuesday in a murder-for-hire plot in which he used money from his prison account to try and pay a fake hitman to kill a prosecutor and witness in his prior case.
Richard Gilbert, 52, was scheduled to enter his pleas in federal court in Greenville to one count of murder-for-hire and one count of retaliation against an informant, according to public court filings obtained by news outlets.
According to a complaint filed in the case, Gilbert tried to hire an undercover FBI agent who was posing as a hitman to retaliate against people who were involved in getting him sentenced to prison in a Kentucky drug trafficking case.
Gilbert was already serving an 11-year sentence, but under a plea agreement, he agreed to serve nearly 22 additional years on the new charges.
Prosecutors said Gilbert sent the undercover FBI agent $2,000 from his canteen account to carry out the killings. According to evidence entered in the case, Gilbert used a contraband cell phone that had been smuggled in to him to communicate with the agent.