Woman accused of trying to rent a hitman to kill ex-husband pleads guilty in Michigan
A Michigan woman accused of trying to hire a hitman to kill her husband has pleaded guilty to solicitation of murder, media outlets report.
Wendy Lynn Wein, a 52-year-old from South Rockford, Michigan, went to RentAHitman.com last year looking for someone to kill her ex-husband, Michigan police said.
But what she didn’t know was that the website — which claims to offer free consultations, features customer reviews and says it has helped clients from “all walks of life,” including government employees, politicians and even children — was completely bogus.
After Wein filed a request with the website under a pseudonym, she met with someone she thought was from the company in a parking lot, according to a news release from Michigan State Police.
That person was actually an undercover detective, who listened as Wein explained she wanted her ex-husband dead and provided his home address, work address and work schedule, Fox 2 reported.
She also offered a $5,000 payment and paid the detective $200 for travel expenses, the release from Michigan State Police said.
Wein was arrested on July 21, 2020, and charged with solicitation to commit murder and illegal use of a computer to facilitate crime, the release said.
She pleaded guilty to both charges on Nov. 12, Fox 2 reported. She will be sentenced on Jan. 13, 2022.
RentAHitman.com calls itself a “point and click solution” and claims to keep customers’ information private by complying with the Hitman Information Privacy & Protection Act of 1964 — a nod to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA.
“All of our competitors websites cannot say that and shouldn’t be trusted — Capisce!” writes the company’s fake leader, Guido Fanelli.
The website boasts its “customizable solutions” to problems of all kinds, including bullying at school or work and troubled relationships that “you just wish would go away.”
It also includes reviews from satisfied customers, like Phil M. from Florida, who says Guido and his crew were able to “resolve a five year dispute in a matter of days.”
Of course, none of the website’s information is real. The website is actually run by Bob Innes, a Northern California man who described himself to Rolling Stone magazine as “an IT guy with a passion for being a kitchen detective.”
Innes said he graduated from the Napa Valley Police Academy in 1999 with the intention of working in law enforcement, but couldn’t find a job, leading him to tech instead. He bought the domain name RentAHitman for $9.20 in 2005, not expecting anyone to take it seriously, and was surprised to find around 300 email inquiries for his services, he told the magazine.
“I thought, you know, ‘Nobody’s really going to mess with this. Nobody is going to take it seriously,’” Innes told Rolling Stone. “It was not my intention to set up a snare for some people.”
Innes told Michigan State Police that he believes the website may have prevented at least 130 killings, as he turns over all requests for hitmen to law enforcement.
Wein could spend up to nine years in prison, Fox 2 reported.
This story was originally published November 22, 2021 at 12:59 PM with the headline "Woman accused of trying to rent a hitman to kill ex-husband pleads guilty in Michigan."