Somers Point Woman Pleads Guilty To Paying Purported Hitman $4K

CAMDEN, NJ — A 60-year-old Somers Point woman admitted in court Tuesday that she paid $4,000 to a man she believed to be a hitman in 2018 to assault an ex-boyfriend, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey announced Tuesday.

Diane Sylvia entered the plea by video conference on Tuesday in Camden federal court after she was charged with one count of solicitation to commit a violent crime with the intent to seriously injure another person, authorities said.

According to court documents, Sylvia in 2018 was working as a licensed clinical social worker at a private mental health counseling practice in Linwood. Prosecutors said that she asked one of her patients, whom she believed was formerly involved in organized crime whether that patient could recommend someone to assault her ex-boyfriend. An undercover FBI agent, posing as a hitman, met with Sylvia and in recorded in-person meetings and telephone conversations, was told that Sylvia wanted him to punch her ex-boyfriend’s face and break his arm, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. She told the undercover agent that she believed to be the hitman that her ex-boyfriend had stolen money from her and was extorting her, authorities said.

On Oct. 31, 2018, authorities say Sylvia met with the undercover agent in her office and paid him $4,000 to carry out the attack. The agent told Sylvia to get rid of the pre-paid cell phone she was using to communicate with him, to which Sylvia asked if she should throw the phone off the Ocean City Bridge. Sylvia was immediately arrested after the meeting, the news release said.

Sylvia faces up to five years in prison and a fine of $125,000 and she is scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 27, 2021.