HOUSTON – A jury has sentenced a former Houston medical resident to life imprisonment for plotting the deaths of his ex-girlfriend and his new girlfriend's ex-husband.
The Harris County jury in Houston deliberated just over an hour Monday before coming back with the maximum sentence for 40-year-old Leon Philip Jacob. That's after finding him guilty Friday of capital murder solicitation.
His girlfriend, 48-year-old Houston veterinarian Valerie Busick McDaniel, also had been charged with capital murder solicitation. However, she leaped to her death from her seventh-floor condominium a year ago while free on bond.
Defense attorneys had urged jurors to sentence Jacob to probation. Jurors heard evidence on how Jacob and McDaniel hired an undercover police officer posing as a hit man to kill their former partners. Neither target was harmed.
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