Dalia Dippolito was convicted last month of solicitation of first-degree murder. According to prosecutors, she was recorded on video and audio as she plotted to have Michael Dippolito killed. During her trial, jurors heard her telling an undercover detective she was “5,000 percent sure” she wanted her husband dead.
Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley imposed the sentence on Dippolito, saying that she had acted in a “cold and calculated manner.”
Prosecutors did not return PEOPLE’s calls for comment.
Throughout the trial, Claypool alerted the judge that one of the jurors was allegedly falling asleep. “She was almost snoring,” he says. “We made two trial complaints on the record, and submitted five affidavits from people who saw her sleeping. Florida caselaw is clear that this is grounds for a new trial.”
A Florida woman accused of hiring a hit man to kill her husband in 2009 has been sentenced to 16 years in prison — but her attorney tells PEOPLE his client will appeal the case.
Dippolito has maintained that she never intended to go through with the murder-for-hire plot. Her attorneys say the recordings were part of a video project that she was doing along with Michael and her former lover so that the trio could land a reality TV show.