San Diego

Calling a Kingfisher, Okla., car dealer the “mastermind” behind a murder-for-hire plot against an Oklahoma attorney, a judge sentenced Robert George Boeckman to 20 years in federal prison Monday.

Boeckman, 58, received the longest sentence of any of the plot’s five participants in the Aug. 7, 1985, shooting of attorney Robert Barr III, 48, of Dover, Okla., who survived the attack.

Prosecutors asked that U.S. District Judge Judith Keep impose a $1 million fine, but she rejected the request, saying Boeckman’s wife has children to take care of and it would impose a hardship.

Boeckman was convicted Feb. 3 of conspiracy to commit a murder-for-hire and soliciting others to kill Barr, who had sued both him and his son for $1.7 million in damages stemming from losses incurred to Barr from their failed oil companies.

Boeckman’s attorney, Mack Martin, of Oklahoma City, urged the judge to impose a lesser sentence handed down last month to two others in the plot.

On Feb. 29, Keep sentenced Boeckman’s son, Robert Brian Boeckman, 30, of Santee, to 13 years in prison. The son testified against his father during his trial.

The admitted gunman, Vernon James, 35, of San Diego, was sentenced Feb. 23 to 15 years in prison.

The judge said the elder Boeckman was the “mastermind” behind the plot to kill Barr, who served in the Oklahoma state legislature for two terms in the 1960s.