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SALT LAKE CITY — A 70-year-old woman from Herriman has argued that the state planted an informant in her jail cell and that prosecutors and a judge conspired against her. She has fired attorneys and refused to appear in court.
Her latest effort to postpone a prison sentence failed Monday.
A judge ordered Linda Tracy Gillman to spend at least three years and up to life in prison for trying to order a hit man to kill her ex-husband, who fought tears as he watched the hearing in Salt Lake City.
"There just seems to have been a lack of care, of remorse, of concern about the other people involved in this case," said 3rd District Judge Paul Parker. "It is interesting that your ex-husband is the one that is in tears."
Despite the resolution, Gillman's time in court isn't over. Just after she was sentenced in one case Monday, she was arraigned in a second alleged plot, wherein prosecutors say she attempted from behind bars to have an attorney and key witness killed.
A recording played in court Monday, in which she arranges for a hit man to "take them both out," reveals the "cold and calculated manner" Gillman had as she attempted to set up the killing, Parker said.
After a brief statement about his life insurance, Duane Gillman choked back emotion, thanking the judge and saying, "I can't add any more, your honor."
His wife, Lynda Faldmo, said she has had anxiety attacks as the case has dragged on, noting the defendant was originally scheduled to be sentenced in April.
"It has really taken its toll on us," she said.
Prosecutor Marc Mathis said the couple has suffered clear emotional harm that comes with knowing that there is someone who wants them dead.
"A human life means nothing to her," he said of Gillman.
A jury in March found Gillman guilty of one count of criminal solicitation, a first-degree felony. She was acquitted of a second count.
But she maintains the truth about the case may never come out.
"What happened has never even come to light," she told the judge.
She also accused Parker of not remaining impartial as he presided over the case. "It's obvious and has been for a long, long time how hateful you are towards me."
Gillman sought to postpone the final hearing in her case for an 11th time Monday, saying her attorney Mitchell Olsen had not prepared for the hearing and reached an agreement on her behalf in a separate, civil case without her consent.
She argued that prosecutors improperly communicated with the judge out of court and that the state has tried to enlist other inmates to secure more charges against her. Mathis called her statements "just another recycled argument that has failed in the past and should fail again."
Parker denied Gillman's request to fire Olsen and delay sentencing.
"I have tried to bend over backward," he said, to allow her to prepare for the hearing.
Gillman, who represented herself in the case for a time, appeared in glasses and a yellow Salt Lake County Jail uniform. She sat shackled and in a wheelchair.
In January 2017, prosecutors said she asked one of her employees — a man who also rented a condominium from her — if he could arrange for another person to carry out the murder and make it look like a drug overdose death, according to the charges. But instead, he went to police. Gillman was charged with giving him $5,000 and promised him $100,000 more once her ex-husband and his current wife were dead and she collected her ex-husband's life insurance.
Prosecutors allege that in April, Gillman sought to have an attorney and the employee — the state's key witness in her original case — both killed, according to court documents.
An inmate Gillman had allegedly befriended told investigators that she offered to post the woman's bail in exchange for bringing a confession letter that Gillman wrote to the former employee. If he refused sign it, she was told to contact a person not named in documents to "take the witness out," prosecutors said. Gillman also wanted the inmate to ask the same person if he would be willing to kill an attorney who won a civil case against her, according to charges.
Not guilty pleas were entered in Gillman's second case to two more counts of criminal solicitation, a first-degree felony, and two counts of obstructing justice, a second-degree felony.
Gillman is due back in court Nov. 26.
