OC Woman Gets 20+ Years In Prison After Man Was Shot On Her Boat: US Department Of Justice

ORANGE COUNTY, CA — An Orange County woman was sentenced to more than two decades in prison for a man's shooting on her boat and her efforts to mislead investigators, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a statement.

San Juan Capistrano resident Sheila Marie Ritze, 42, was sentenced to 21 years and 10 months in prison on Monday in connection with the death of a victim only identified by officials as Dao, the statement said.

Ritze faced a maximum charge of life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the U.S. and making false or fabricated statements to investigators.

She was sentenced late Monday afternoon by U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, who described the defendant's conduct as "horrific and horrendous" and noted its "callousness," the statement said.

In Oct. 2019, Ritz and Fountain Valley resident Hoang Xuan Le, 41, took Dao out onto the open ocean off the coast of Dana Point under the ruse of a lobster-fishing trip, prosecutors said.

Le, who was owed money by Dao, shot the victim. Dao went overboard, and Ritze and Le returned to Dana Point Harbor, leaving the victim to drown.

His body was found northwest of Oceanside, prosecutors said.

Two months after the killing, Ritze apparently told federal investigators "a series of lies," including that she'd never met Dao before the boat trip. Ritze and the victim had been in Las Vegas together 11 days before he was murdered.

“Ritze’s crime has left a grieving mother, grieving widow, grieving brothers, a grieving sister, and two fatherless small children,” prosecutors argued in a sentencing memorandum. “Ritze continued on with her life after murdering Dao as though nothing had happened, continuing to party with Le…and assisting Le with tracking [the victim’s] grieving widow with GPS trackers.”