A Southern California woman was sentenced Friday to 10 years and four months in prison for recruiting a hit man to hack her third husband to death with a machete, prosecutors said.
Fountain Valley resident Mary Katheryn Sharpski, 50, pleaded guilty to charges of attempted murder and mayhem in the botched March 2009 attack.
Sharpski's husband survived, but had some fingers severed and was left dependent on a wheelchair.
The attacker "fractured the victim’s skull, severing a thumb and fingers, partly severing his nose, causing several machete wounds, and leaving him to die," prosecutors said.
Prosecutors argued that Sharpski orchestrated the attack with an unemployed neighbor, Michael Calvin Shores II, who had moved into the couple's home.
Sharpski and Shores allegedly recruited the hit man to kill her husband so the couple could move away together to Wyoming.
Prosecutors also claimed that Sharpski mistakenly thought her husband had a life insurance policy.
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Sharpski entered into a plea bargain with prosecutors that wiped out her credit for time served in jail, making her punishment the equivalent of nearly 16 years in prison.
Shores is due in court Dec. 6 for a trial-setting conference.
The man who carried out the machete attack, 26-year-old Santa Ana resident Antonio Cinco Ortega, was sentenced in January to 25 years to life in prison.
The Sharpskis lived in a two-bedroom apartment in Fountain Valley with their two daughters and son.
City News Service contributed to this report
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