BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The courtroom was filled with emotions as 72-year-old Hamid Ghassemi was being sentenced.
Eight years ago, Hamid Ghassemi hired three hitmen to kill his ex-wife, Taherah Ghassemi. His son was the second target but they were unsuccessful. Tahereh, however, was found dead with a single gunshot wound in a wooded area.
“It’s very hard to stand in front of a judge when they’re convicting your own father. The man that you looked up to your whole life,” said Hamed Ghassemi.
The judge made it clear in court that Ghassemi’s act was despicable and cowardly, all of which Hamed denies happened.
“I’m just happy he gets to spend the rest of his life in prison knowing what he did and having to live with it every day,” said Ghessemi.
The three suspects, Daniel Richter, Tyler Ashpaugh, and Skyler Williams were all arrested, Ashupaugh however died in Angola in January.
Hamed feels like justice has been served, but fears he’ll always have to watch his back.
“Sleeping with one eye open waiting for him to try to strike again from inside the prison. I’ll be very careful with who I hang out with and where I hang out,” said Ghassemi.
The judge described this case as “heartless” saying, Shakespeare himself couldn’t have written a worse tragedy. Ghessami has been given 30 days to appeal.
