A New Jersey hairdresser accused of trying to arrange the murders of her ex-boyfriend and his teenage daughter through a man she met on Tinder has been indicted in the alleged murder-for-hire scheme.
Jaclyn Diiorio, 28, was charged with two counts of using interstate commerce facilities in an attempt to commit murder-for-hire, the Department of Justice said.
Federal prosecutors allege Diiorio used her cellphone and attempted to pay a confidential informant to kill her former boyfriend, Philadelphia Police Officer Matthew O’Hanlon, as well as his 19-year-old daughter, according to an indictment filed Sept. 3 in US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Diiorio was taken into custody in Gloucester Township in April after authorities said she began communicating with the informant about carrying out the alleged double killing.
Investigators said she connected with the purported hitman on Tinder and exchanged phone calls and text messages between March 31 and April 3, during which she allegedly stated that she wanted O’Hanlon dead and disclosed that he was a police officer, according to Camden County prosecutors.
Authorities said Diiorio and the phony hitman first met at a Wawa in Runnemede on March 31 after exchanging messages.
Diiorio then met the informant again at a Dollar General on April 4 and handed over $500 as a down payment — promising to pay approximately $12,000 in installments to the phony hitman.
However, the informant tipped off the Camden County detectives, who then contacted the Philadelphia Police Department to alert them and the intended target.
Officers from the Gloucester Township Police Department Special Response Team arrested her and found an unlabeled bottle of pills suspected to be alprazolam.
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She was charged with two counts of first-degree attempted murder, one count of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder and one count of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance by Camden County.
Federal prosecutors will handle Diiorio’s case after the county dismissed its charges following the federal indictment.
Prosecutors said the April plot was not the hairdresser’s first attempt to arrange the killings of her ex-boyfriend and his daughter.
Diiorio allegedly told the informant she had previously been deceived by others who provided her with “fake pictures” purporting to show a completed contract killing, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
The relationship between Diiorio and O’Hanlon had already been over for about a month when she allegedly set the murder-for-hire plot in motion.
Diiorio is currently in federal custody and a detention hearing has been scheduled for Monday before US Magistrate Judge Scott W. Reid, prosecutors said.
Diiorio’s attorney, Robert Gamburg, said she will enter a not guilty plea, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
Before the federal indictment, Gamburg filed a motion to have the Camden County charges thrown out, arguing prosecutors had relied on evidence obtained through entrapment.
Gamburg called the informant a rogue operator desperate for cash who regularly fed unsolicited tips to the sheriff’s department for money — and whose communications with Diiorio went unmonitored by detectives for days leading up to her arrest.
Diiorio faces up to 20 years in federal prison if convicted.