Legal Juice

A New Jersey man has been charged with soliciting a hit for $20 (and drugs) up front, plus payments after the hit. $20! Fortunately for the intended victim, the would-be hitman was an undercover police officer. From the pages (virtual, that is) of The Jersey Journal) ...

A Union County man is being held at the Hudson County jail in Kearny on charges he offered drugs and a $20 down payment to an undercover police officer in an attempt to recruit him to paralyze or kill a man, officials said.

Abram Soliman, 21, of Elizabeth, was recently indicted on the charges of conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, Union County Prosecutor's Office spokesman John Holl announced today.

In July a 19-year-old Elizabeth man approached Elizabeth police and the Union County Prosecutor's Office claiming Soliman asked him to kill a man, Holl said. They launched an investigation and set up a meeting with Soliman, the informant, and an undercover officer, Holl said.

Soliman first asked the officer "to paralyze this other man," and then changed the request to murder, saying "He wanted this other man to disappear," and offered drugs, cash and loot, officials said.

He said he would make a down payment of $20 and promised installment payments after the murder, officials said. Soliman's gripe against the intended victim apparently stemmed from a drug deal gone bad, Holl said.

Soliman was arrested shortly after the meeting and has been held in Kearny since then in order to avoid a potential conflict with other inmates at the Union County jail, Holl said. His bail is set at $250,000.