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- Inmate Lorenzo Gutierrez pleaded guilty to attempting to solicit the murder of his ex-girlfriend.
- He offered drugs and money to an undercover agent posing as a hitman.
- The investigation by authorities likely saved the intended victims' lives, officials said.
SALT LAKE CITY — A Salt Lake man pleaded guilty Thursday to trying to hire someone to murder his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend while he was in jail serving a sentence for stalking the same woman.
On the second day of a four-day scheduled jury trial, Lorenzo Gutierrez, 32, pleaded guilty to two counts of criminal solicitation to commit murder, first-degree felonies, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office announced.
In April 2020, while Gutierrez was incarcerated at the Salt Lake County Jail, he offered another inmate meth, heroin and $10,000 cash in exchange for killing Gutierrez's ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend and for pictures of the deed, according to charging documents.
Salt Lake County sheriff's deputies then put a recording device in Gutierrez's cell and recorded him talking to his cellmate about wanting to "smoke" and "stomp out" the woman and several other people, the charges state, and that "he wanted things handled while he was in jail so that he wouldn't be a suspect."
Investigators then used a confidential informant to give Gutierrez the name of a fictitious person willing to carry out his request. At the direction of Gutierrez, the informant wrote a letter to the fictional hitman, who was actually an undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the charges state.
Gutierrez also called the undercover agent from the jail several times and discussed plans to have his former girlfriend killed, the charges say. He offered the agent a car title as a down payment, and in June 2020, Gutierrez offered his government-issued stimulus check as a down payment.
During one of the phone calls that Gutierrez shared with the fictional hitman, he shared how unhappy he was at being served custody papers regarding his young child with the ex-girlfriend, the district attorney's office said.
In July 2020, Gutierrez was transferred to the Utah State Prison on a conviction of stalking the woman for calling her from the Salt Lake County Jail. He has twice been convicted of stalking the woman, who obtained a permanent stalking injunction against him in March 2020, charging documents state.
After being transferred to prison, Gutierrez continued to make calls trying to arrange the hit.
Gutierrez's sentencing is scheduled for July 21.
"Violence is never the way to resolve disputes, especially involving custody of a child," District Attorney Sim Gill said in a statement, adding that the investigation likely helped save the lives of the two targeted victims.
