Lawyer convicted in client's murder in 'elaborate and shocking sequence of events'
A Southfield, Michigan, lawyer was convicted last week in the June 2022 murder of his client in an alleged plot to gain his money. (Image from Shutterstock)
A Southfield, Michigan, lawyer was convicted last week in the June 2022 murder of his client in an alleged plot to gain his money.
Jurors in Oakland County, Michigan, convicted Southfield, Michigan, lawyer Marco Bisbikis, 39, and alleged triggerman Roy Larry, 46, on May 23.
“The evidence revealed an elaborate and shocking sequence of events” that led to the murder of Oak Park, Michigan, jeweler Dan Hutchinson and the attempted murder of his wife, Marisa Hutchinson, said Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald in a May 23 press release.
Jurors deliberated for about an hour and a half. Bisbikis and Larry were convicted of first-degree premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree premeditated murder, assault with intent to murder and two felony-firearm counts. Life in prison is a mandatory sentence for first-degree murder, according to the Oakland Press.
Among the publications with coverage are People, the Detroit News, Fox 2 Detroit (here, here and here), the Oakland Press (here and here) and Law & Crime.
The Hutchinsons were sitting in their car when the alleged triggerman rode up on a bike and fired 14 rounds, according to the Detroit News and the Oakland Press. Marisa Hutchinson survived after being shot in the leg.
Bisbikis had made himself a successor trustee in the couple’s living will and trust if they died before their child earned a college degree or turned 35 years old, according to the Oakland Press and Fox 2 Detroit.
Testifying under a grant of immunity, Marisa Hutchinson said Hutch’s Jewelry sold expensive jewelry costing as much as $75,000, and many of their buyers paid cash, the Oakland Press reports. Many of those buyers did not want to report the transactions to the Internal Revenue Service as required by regulations governing transactions of more than $10,000.
Marisa Hutchinson said she signed the trust document without reading it.
The Hutchinsons reported only about 60% of sales to the IRS, and they gave their cash to Bisbikis for laundering based on his suggestion, Marisa Hutchinson testified. The lawyer said he would pay the couple’s bills without leaving a paper trail.
Marisa Hutchinson also testified that she and her husband invested $2 million in a Bisbikis horror film called Skeletons in the Closet, according to Fox 2 Detroit.
Bisbikis allegedly told two other men accused of involvement in the murder plot that Dan Hutchinson had to be killed because he planned to testify against Bisbikis and other members of the East Coast Mafia.
The two men worked on Bisbikis’ pot farm and were to be paid $100,000 for the murder, according to testimony by one of the men, Angelo Raptoplous, Fox 2 Detroit reports.
Raptoplous and the other man, Darnell Larry, testified against Bisbikis and Roy Larry after pleading guilty to solicitation to murder.
