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SARATOGA SPRINGS — Police say an Oregon woman hired a convicted felon to kill her recently divorced husband in Saratoga Springs in exchange for $600 and the title to a 2005 Dodge Stratus.
A federal criminal complaint was filed in Oregon's U.S. District Court on July 9 accusing Pamela Jean Gygi, of Westlake, Oregon, with using interstate commerce facilities in the commission of a murder-for-hire. She was being held Tuesday at the Lane County Jail in Eugene.
Gygi and her ex-husband were divorced in December, according to the complaint.
"As part of the divorce decree, (the husband) was ordered to take out a life insurance policy with a value of $100,000 naming Gygi as the sole beneficiary," the complaint states. "The real property was ordered to be sold and the proceeds divided evenly. An arbitration hearing was scheduled for June 30, 2015, regarding the personal property."
Prosecutors say Gygi hired a convicted felon who was on probation, and promised him $600, the title to a 2005 Dodge Stratus, a residence in California and the ex-husband's online business if he would kill him.
The felon traveled from Oregon to Utah on May 30. But rather than kill the former husband, he apparently warned him.
"(The man told the ex-husband) of the plot and that (he) had no intention of killing (him). (The convict) told me that he risked violating parole by going out of state because (he) felt a need to warn (the ex-husband) face-to-face," court documents state.
Wearing a hidden recorder, the man met with Gygi two more times in June. On one occasion, Gygi told him that she had acquired a rifle and a gun that were "untraceable" from a man who could "keep his mouth shut," according to the complaint.
Later, during a second meeting with Gygi, she told the man she wanted to hire that he could tamper with her ex-husband's vehicle "in order to kill him and make it look like an accident," the complaint states.
FBI agents arrested Gygi on July 10.
Gygi's attorney, Bryan Lessley, was not available for comment.
Contributing: Associated Press
