A jury already acquitted Hess for a separate alleged murder-for-hire plot. In 2014 Police accused Hess of trying to hire a police drug informant, Calvin Jones Jr., to kill his estranged wife’s boyfriend. Jones worked with police to make Hess believe the murder was carried out by faking the killing. Police had Jones show a picture of the man in a trunk to Hess, to make him believe it had occurred. Police said Hess then paid Jones just under $2,000, at which point they arrested him.
Defense Attorney Farley Holt argued during the May trial that Hess hired Jones to beat up the man, not kill him. The jury believed the defense, and found Hess not guilty.
The latest trial involves two more plots Hess allegedly tried to arrange while in prison for the first. Police said Hess hired an inmate to kill the original hit man, Jones, and then a second inmate to kill the first, because he went to police.
During one of Hess’s court hearings, police said his son Toby Hess used his cell phone to take a picture of Calvin Jones, Jr. Police believed Hess planned to give an inmate the picture so he could kill Jones for $15,000. Police said the inmate instead reported everything to police. Toby Hess and Gregory Hess were charged for the alleged second plot. A second inmate, was then charged police said for accepting money to kill the first inmate, after he went to the authorities.
The defense argued that the prison inmates targeted Hess for his money, and as a ticket to get out of prison. The defense said the inmates who testified are liars, and sophisticated criminals, who know how to work the system. They used inmate Michael Crampton as an example, saying he only gave the District Attorneys Office information when he realized he wasn’t getting out of prison as early as he had expected.
