Man Gets 35 Years in Failed Murder Plot

A reputed Las Vegas mobster was sentenced to 35 years in federal prison Friday for having organized an elaborate murder-for-hire scheme.

An attorney for defendant Richard J. Dota, 56, called the prison term a virtual “death sentence,” but Dota showed little emotion as U.S. Dist. Judge Gary L. Taylor ordered him to spend what could be the rest of his life behind bars.

The trial centered on allegations that businessman Julius F. Schill, 58, of San Juan Capistrano paid Dota $21,000 to kill his secretary’s fiance as part of a plan to make her Schill’s lover.

Federal prosecutors said Dota organized a three-man “hit crew” to kill Wilbur Constable, 26, a former Marine, of Lake Forest. Constable was lured to an Irvine parking lot on Oct. 11, 1991, but survived a severe beating with baseball bats and a gunshot wound to the back of the head.

Dota and Schill were tried together, but a federal jury acquitted Schill of all charges. Dota was convicted of conspiracy and murder-for-hire charges.

Two of the men who carried out the attack, John Caravaggio, 28, and Scott Douglass Smith, 24, both of New Jersey, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder and were sentenced to two years in federal prison. They received more lenient sentences in exchange for providing evidence against Dota.

The third assailant, triggerman Blake Tek Yoon, has yet to be sentenced but faces less than 20 years in prison, officials said.

Federal Deputy Public Defender H. Dean Steward, representing Dota, argued against the long prison term, saying that his client should not be made to serve more time than the men who actually carried out the attack.

“I just think that’s absolutely unfair,” said Steward, who added that he would appeal.

Prosecutors argued that under federal sentencing guidelines, the person who organizes such a crime is considered more culpable than those who carry it out.

Steward also requested a new trial for Dota, arguing that it was inconsistent for his client to be convicted of a murder for hire when the man who supposedly hired him was acquitted.

Taylor said that jurors did not find Schill innocent but rather that they determined that there was insufficient evidence to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

“Mr. Schill was not found innocent. He was found not guilty. There’s a big difference,” Taylor said.

An important part of the unusual case was the relationship Schill had with his secretary, Cynthia Asher, 25, also of Lake Forest, who was engaged to Constable at the time.

Asher testified that Schill promised her a horse farm and condominium if she would have an affair with him but that she refused.

Schill testified during the trial that he and Asher were lovers, and he denied that he tried to have her fiance killed.

Jurors said later that they acquitted Schill in part because they believed Asher lied in her testimony.