WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – A Boynton Beach woman, who was found guilty of hiring an undercover police officer to kill her husband, will go to trial for a second time in 2016.
Dalia Dippolito was convicted of solicitation to commit first-degree murder in 2011, but the Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed the conviction last year. A Palm Beach County judge Thursday set her retrial for May 23.
Recommended Videos
Dippolito was arrested in August 2009 after she hired an undercover police officer, who was posing as a hit man, to kill her husband. Police then staged a crime scene and recorded her reaction on the day the murder was supposed to take place.
Jurors during the trial were shown an undercover video of Dippolito, offering an undercover officer pretending to be a hit man $3,000 to kill her husband.
In its opinion, the appellate court deemed that the trial court erred by denying her request to individually question prospective jurors about their exposure to pretrial publicity about her case and denying her request to strike the entire jury pool after all the jurors heard an allegation that Dippolito had attempted to poison her husband.
"I think this trial will be very similar to the first trial," former prosecutor Elizabeth Parker told Local10.com. "The evidence hasn't change. The videotapes, the statements that she made, the recorded calls, all the evidence is the same."
35086080
Parker now works as a defense attorney in West Palm Beach and penned a novel about the case, "Poison Candy: The Murderous Madam: Inside Dalia Dippolito's Plot to Kill," that was released last year. She said the "facts are overwhelming as to her guilt in this case."
Dippolito's then-attorney, Michael Salnick, argued during her trial that his client thought she was being recorded as part of a hoax to get her husband on a reality television show.
Her new attorneys, Miami-based Mark Eiglarsh and Los Angeles-based Brian Claypool, were also granted permission to interview the Boynton Beach Police Department about its policies and procedures during the investigation.
"We have questions about whether those policies and procedures were followed as it relates to one of the state's main witnesses," Eiglarsh told Local10.com.
Eiglarsh said they were ready to go to trial sooner, but the prosecutor was going on maternity leave. Eiglarsh, who has two children, was happy to oblige.
He commended the judge for following the law and allowing them to "have the right to re-depose certain witnesses, and I think that due process requires it."
Dippolito, 32, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. She has been out of jail on house arrest pending the appeal.
Follow Local 10 News on Twitter @WPLGLocal10