Boston Lawyer Accused in Kidnapping, Murder-for-Hire Scheme

In a courthouse where his work has taken him so many times, criminal defense lawyer Frederick Ford has a new role: defendant.

Ford is charged with hiring a hit man--really an undercover agent--to kill two former clients who allegedly could have testified about his involvement in the kidnapping of a marijuana dealer.

Court documents detail the alleged deal, including a request from Ford that the killer empty an entire ammunition clip into each victim.

“I just want them dead. I don’t want them to suffer,” he is alleged to have said.

The burly 6-foot-6 attorney was in federal court Friday as his lawyer asked that he undergo a competence evaluation. Magistrate Joyce London Alexander granted the request.

The courtroom was packed to capacity with colleagues and friends of Ford, a married father of two who has practiced law in Boston since 1991. Before that, he was a federal probation officer for 16 years.

Prosecutors say Ford, 48, wanted the two unidentified former clients dead after he learned they might testify against him in a federal investigation into the kidnapping last year of a “large-scale marijuana dealer.”

Ford is alleged to have proposed the kidnapping and expected to receive a share of proceeds from the ransom money. The U.S. attorney’s office wouldn’t release any further information about the kidnapping, including its outcome, because it remains under investigation.

According to an affidavit by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration, Ford confided to a government informant early last month that he had learned of the kidnapping investigation and wanted the two men dead.

The informant is said to have secretly recorded Ford saying he was prepared to kill the men himself and had thought about hiding in a van and shooting one with a rifle.

On July 26, a special agent from the Department of Labor’s racketeering division, posing as a prospective hit man, made contact with Ford. Speaking in an elaborate coded language, the two hatched a plan to kill the former clients, the affidavit said.

The next day, Ford allegedly gave the “hit man” $11,000 in a meeting at a doughnut shop that prosecutors say was caught on videotape, audiotape and in photographs.

That’s where Ford allegedly requested that entire clips be emptied into each victim and offered to take the men to a restaurant so the hit man could “eyeball” them before the killings.

The undercover agent told Ford he was involved with stolen diamonds, and Ford suggested a second kidnapping--of a wealthy jeweler’s son, according to the affidavit.

On Tuesday, the undercover agent met Ford at a hotel and told him the killings had been committed. The agent asked if Ford was a religious man and if he had any problems with his conscience.

“No,” Ford allegedly replied. He was arrested soon afterward.