Poison Candy: The Murderous Madam (10 page)

On July 31, the day that Mike signed over the deed to his townhouse to Dalia—and the day she discovered that he still owned half of it, regardless of how the title read—she called Mohamed and begged to meet him. They met at a Mobil station near her house. As they sat and talked in the front seat of his new Lexus, she reiterated how she needed his help in finding someone to kill her husband, something there was no way he was going to do. He tried to convince her to just divorce him and walk away. At some point in that conversation, Mohamed went into the station by himself to get a pack of cigarettes and a Red Bull. He took his wallet with him from the glove compartment where he always kept it. That was also where he kept his Glock 9, one of the two handguns for which he had a concealed weapons permit. When he came back out, Dalia told him she had to get something out of her car, and took her purse with her. When he went to put his wallet back in the glove compartment, he noticed that his gun was missing. After
some initial stonewalling, she finally gave it back to him. He told her she was an idiot for putting her fingerprints on a gun when she had no idea what it had been used for.

As he left the gas station, Mohamed’s mind was filled with conflicting impulses. Dalia’s renewed urgency meant that all his advice had fallen on deaf ears. The fact that she would steal a gun meant that she was either ruthless or desperate, and with the house now fully in her name, there was nothing stopping her from going through with it. She could easily be setting him up to take the fall. He called an attorney, who advised him to contact the police. Next he contacted one of the cops he knew in Palm Beach Gardens, who referred him to Detective Brown at the Boynton Beach Police Department, which had jurisdiction (due to the location of the gas station where they had met). By the time he heard back from Detective Brown, it was late Friday evening. At the cops’ request, he went and spoke to them, then made an official taped statement once they knew he was serious. He was just hoping to flag down what was turning into a runaway train. He wanted to stop her before she did something stupid and got either one of them in real trouble.

The first night when he came in, Mohamed signed the standard Confidential Informant Agreement. They needed him in order to gain more information—starting with the names of the suspect and the potential victim. For his part, he didn’t want Dalia to get into trouble or to find out that he had been the one to intervene. That first night, he never envisioned her getting arrested—he just thought he might prevent a murder from happening. He told the cops he didn’t want his name made public, since even as a small-business owner, he often came in contact with an unsavory element, and he didn’t need the hassle. They told him it was just a formality and they would protect his identity, which they did. He also believed he would never have to testify in court. But the contract he signed states clearly, “I further understand that I may be required to testify in court cases that I am involved in . . . and to make myself available for court, depositions, or any other action that the court may require.”

In that same document, he also gave his consent for the police to “install an electronic listening device or any other device designed for the purpose
of monitoring conversation(s) on or about my person, for the purpose of conducting a criminal investigation, and to record those conversations for evidentiary purposes.” Those phrases would come back to haunt him.

Since Mohamed had precious little information about Dalia, Sergeant Ranzie suggested they put him in a car on Friday evening and drive him around the neighborhood near the Mobil station, where Mohamed thought she lived, to try to locate her house or car, which would help them identify her or her husband. When that failed to provide any leads, the decision was made for Mohamed to contact Dalia via a controlled cell phone call. By then it was close to midnight, and she failed to answer. The next day, Sergeant Sheridan told Mohamed to contact Dalia on his own and tell her he’d changed his mind about helping her find someone who could do the job for her, and to have her bring $3,000 and a photo of her husband to the Mobil station where they had met last time.

When you have a CI talking to a target, you want everything recorded and perfectly documented, so there is no way for the defense to make some sort of allegation that this was all a setup, or that there were back channels of communication going on behind the scenes. This is especially true in a case like this one, where the CI and the target had a long-standing personal relationship. You also want the CI to appear as normal as possible, even though he’s being monitored by a detective around the clock. Most of the controlled calls between Mohamed and Dalia were recorded with a handheld digital recorder or as three-way calls run through the police department switchboard. But the fact that there existed no tape of this first phone call and several other key conversations became an issue at trial.

The next day, Saturday, August 1, he met with lead Detective Alex Moreno at the station to set up a meeting with Dalia that afternoon. When they asked him to wear a wire so they could record the conversation with the subject, he warned them not to put the body mic in his underwear, a common place to conceal it, because when Dalia first saw him, she often went straight for his crotch and performed oral sex on him. They also asked him for the keys to his car and, unbeknownst to Mohamed, set up an undetectable pinhole video camera in the pocket on a shirt he had hanging in the backseat.

Surveillance teams got to the Mobil station early to set up: Sergeant Ranzie and Detectives Moreno and Anderson were staked out at the pumps adjacent to where Mohamed would park his vehicle (Ranzie pretended to be pumping gas for most of the meeting in order to maintain visuals), and Sergeant Sheridan tailed Mohamed to the location and parked where he could keep him in view. Several other detectives were on hand, artfully integrated into the surroundings and listening in on a live feed. Dalia arrived in the Tahoe and got into Mohamed’s Lexus, allowing law enforcement to run her tags and establish an ID. When the car came up registered to Mike Dippolito, they figured they had the target.

“I can’t believe this shit,” he says when she gets in his car.

“Yeah, I love you, too.” That was one of their pet sayings, a way to defuse renegade tension and a bemused commentary on their odd, enduring relationship. Before they get started, he tries to give her one last out.

MOHAMED: Honestly, you’re not worried about someone getting killed over that much money?

DALIA: It’s not even over the fucking money. Like, you don’t fucking get it. Like, it’s not even about the fucking money. Like, you know, that money, we’ll spend it in a fucking blink of an eye. It’s not about the fucking money. Like, it’s about, like, his fucking friends and all that other shit. Like, the thing is, like, okay, with his wife, like, she didn’t have anything. They were, like, renting. So, like, divorcing her, it didn’t matter. Like, me going and fucking filing for divorce, like, he’ll come after my fucking ass. Period.

A far cry from the grieving widow on display in her interview tape, and, in retrospect, probably as succinct a motive as any other.

DALIA: And all his friends, like, he ran into another guy today at Target that was, like, organized crime, or whatever. Also on probation. Like, he keeps running into all these fucking people is what I’m saying to you. Like, he knows a lot of people.

This is the same argument she will make in more cogent words with the police four days from now.

Mohamed tries to impress on her how serious the hit man is that he has found for her, and how she can’t go back on it once she pulls the trigger. She should follow his instructions, get out of town if he recommends it. She balks: she never leaves town; that would be a red flag. They consider which photo to give to the hit man. He brings up the Buck Wild gang, which she brushes aside.

MOHAMED: I told you to stay away from them.

DALIA: I didn’t give them anything. What are you talking about?

MOHAMED: Larry and all them, when you walked into [the clothes] store, I told you—

DALIA: I didn’t give them any money.

MOHAMED: Well, they told me you did. You told them that you were going to give them my Range Rover or something like that.

DALIA: No. That was bullshit. That guy still calls me. But I told him I’m out of town.

Mohamed changes the subject.

MOHAMED: So, okay, after he’s killed him, whatever, your mom and all of them are not gonna, like—his mom is not gonna get suspicious of you or anything like that?

DALIA: Why me? Like, do you know what fucking killing somebody [is]?

MOHAMED: If you say that …

DALIA: Yeah, but killing somebody? Come on. I mean, that’s fucking, you know—nobody’s gonna be able to point a finger at me. But I need him to say, like—remember how you were asking me who’s his enemy, who’s this, who’s that? … There’s this guy that, like,
fucking hates him, hates him, hates him. Like, he snitched them out. Now that family’s doing time right now.

She’s perfecting her alibi. She wants it done on Wednesday, and Mo assures her it will be because the hit man is flying to Costa Rica on Thursday. He also describes him as former military who is really good at his job. He’s improvising now. Mohamed will serve as a go-between on this initial $1,200 to buy the gun, but she’ll have to meet with him herself for the rest of it. He also puts the touch on her for $20,000 after the job is completed, for having brokered the introduction—as well as $200 today if she can spare it. She agrees to the $20,000, and promises to try to get some more money out of the ATM, although she knows her account is already overdrawn.

MOHAMED: I don’t want to talk about it anymore. Let’s just get this shit done with.

We see her hand him the $1,200 in cash on the video, the moment a crime is committed.

DALIA: … And we never talk about it again—ever—do we ever talk about it again.

They debate which photograph of Mike they should give to the hit man. Dalia settles on one of Mike with her grandfather.

DALIA: But take my grandfather fucking out of the picture. Can’t you fucking cut him out?

They settle on a picture of just Mike instead.

MOHAMED: Yeah. But start getting your life straight after this. Seriously. Don’t never do this shit again, you know? I’m telling you—

DALIA: You know what? You fucking start getting your shit together, too … Don’t lecture me.

And one more thing.

DALIA: Wipe my fucking prints off those fucking pictures.

She tells him to smile.

MOHAMED: Fuck this shit. I’ve been through divorces and problems. And I can’t believe I’m even doing this.

DALIA: And who the hell told you never to fucking get married?

MOHAMED: Yeah. Shit happens.

DALIA: I know. Fuck. I ended up in the same boat as you. You’re right. We are a lot alike.

MOHAMED: All right. Let me get going … Let’s not stay in contact the next day or two.

“God forgive me,” he whispers under his breath as she’s getting out of the car.

On his drive back to the police station, Mohamed gets a call from a friend of his and they chat in and out of English and Arabic.

“I said I’m not going to be able to sleep knowing someone’s going to get killed,” he says at one point. “I have to get it off my chest, you know.” Later in the conversation, he says, “She trusts me like crazy.”

Two days later on Monday, August 3, at 11:38 a.m., Mohamed called Dalia and told her the hit man would be contacting her shortly.

“You won’t feel comfortable if you go by yourself, right?” he asks. “Not really, no,” she says. He agrees to go with her, and instructs her to keep it close to the vest, do as he says, don’t argue about the money, and get out of there as soon as she can. “Straight, fast, quick, clean,” he says.

An hour and a half later, he got a message that Dalia was on her way over to talk to him in person. Hastily calling the police department to determine what he should do, particularly since they haven’t made arrangements to tape the meeting, Detective Moreno told him to blow her off. “Come on, man, you’re a smart guy—think of something,” Moreno says. The police tape the phone call. Dalia is driving on I-95 in the Tahoe and refuses to discuss things in the car, instead pulling over onto the shoulder of the highway and pacing back and forth beside passing traffic. (This was the vehicle she repeatedly reported as involved in illegal drug activity, and she fears police may have bugged the vehicle.) Mohammed makes a joke about how long it’s taking her to get situated.

DALIA: Whatever. I love you, too.

MOHAMED: I love you, too. But love’s one of those really strong words. Be careful how you use it.

DALIA: What? You know I love you. I’ve known you forever, my God. It’s so fucking crazy, I swear. Like, for whatever fucking reason, we always end up, like, I don’t know—[she giggles]—we always end up fucking talking again. It’s fucking crazy.

Contract murder seems to make her wistful, even philosophical.

She tells him that Mike will be at the bank on Wednesday morning in Boca Raton, where he will withdraw $10,000 from the Bank of America branch as a payment for a business partner.

DALIA: So what I’m trying to tell you is that if our friend or whatever hooks up with him for fucking coffee, he could get a piece of that, is what I’m trying to say. Like, from that fucking money. Even though whatever is taking place, he could fucking give that to you.

MOHAMED (angry): Listen, Delilah. I’m not robbing him. I don’t want his money. I’m doing this for you, okay? … Let this guy take care of it. He’s a professional.

The issue resolved, Dalia returned home to await the hit man’s call. At 2:47 p.m., the hit man calls Dalia to tell her he is driving up from Miami to meet with her in a couple of hours, and she should bring $3,000 as a down payment and a key to her house. Although he never gave her a name, this was in reality Widy Jean, a Haitian undercover police officer chosen to match Dalia’s imagined profile of a professional assassin, based on her interaction with the Buck Wild gang. Although she was technically guilty of a crime the second she handed Mohamed the $1,200, police officials determined it would be a stronger case if they went through with the hit man sting (and stronger still if they set up a fake crime scene). Dalia agrees to his terms, but immediately calls Mohamed at 3:08 in a panic, wondering if she can pay him less up front, and worried about giving a killer access to her home and possessions.