Testimony: Ex hired ‘hitman’

STAUNTON — A Stuarts Draft man asked an undercover police agent to kill his ex-wife and her boyfriend for $700, then talked the price down to $400 before being arrested, according to testimony during a preliminary hearing Thursday.

A judge certified to grand jury four charges against Thomas J. Laguardia Sr., 57.

He is being held without bond on two counts of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and two counts of attempted capital murder, with the killing for hire.

Laguardia, listed as unemployed in court records, searched with persistence for a “hitman” to murder his ex-wife, Kerry Egnor, and her boyfriend, Frank Kemo, Augusta County authorities said. Egnor works as a clerk at the Augusta County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court.

Tipped by an informant, investigators arranged for Laguardia to meet Sgt. Josh Sholes of the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office, who posed as a hitman. They met twice before local and federal officers arrested Laguardia on Feb. 4.

According to testimony from Sholes:

During a Feb. 3 meeting in a Verona parking lot, Laguardia requested that Egnor and her lover be shot, either while driving or while at home. Laguardia was to check himself into the hospital, faking a stroke, to create an alibi.

“Money was an issue,” Sholes said.

He and Laguardia agreed to a $700 fee, with $200 to be paid before the murders.

After telling Laguardia to call if he didn’t want to proceed, the pair met the next day to exchange money. Both meetings were recorded with audio and video.

“[Laguardia] negotiated the price to the $200 up front and another $200 at the end,” Sholes said.

He paid in $20 bills and Sholes told him the murders would happen the next day.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Tomorrow? I’m impressed,’” Sholes testified.

Prosecutor Phil Figura asked about Laguardia’s tone: “So not laughter … but adulation?”

“Absolutely,” Sholes said.

Public defender Duane Barron cross-examined Sholes, asking if he would have accepted any fee and questioning how Laguardia conveyed his goal.

Consulting the second page of a transcript, Sholes responded that early during the first conversation, Laguardia said he wanted the pair “removed.” By page four, Sholes said, Laguardia talked about shooting.

“I wasn’t there to entrap him,” Sholes said. “I just told him I didn’t know what the meeting was about.”

Laguardia never described Kemo by name, and provided the wrong address for Egnor, but a correct license plate number, according to testimony.

Each of the solicitation charges carries a five- to 40-year prison sentence. Attempted capital murder charges carry a potential life sentence.

Laguardia remains barred from contact with his son and daughter and Egnor and Kemo. Like Egnor, Laguardia’s daughter works in the Augusta County courts system.

County records show Laguardia and Egnor separated in 2005 and divorced in 2006 after a 34-year marriage.

Laguardia is being held at Middle River Regional Jail in Verona.