Jurors were handed the case Wednesday against a woman accused of masterminding the murder of her husband, a prominent hairdresser, at the home they shared with their two daughters in Woodland Hills.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald Coen turned the case over to the jury after giving them a final set of instructions following about four days of closing arguments in Monica Sementilli's trial.
The 53-year-old woman is charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with her husband Fabio's Jan. 23, 2017, stabbing death in the family's backyard, shortly before the couple was set to celebrate its 20th wedding anniversary.
The murder charge includes the special circumstances of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait.
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Her lover, Robert Baker, now 62, pleaded no contest in July 2023 to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder and admitted the two special circumstance allegations. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the same sentence Sementilli could face if she is convicted as charged.
Baker, who was called to the stand during the defense's portion of the case, maintained that the mother of two had nothing to do with the plan to kill her husband.
A third defendant, Christopher Austin, who was working as a parole and probation officer dealing with at-risk youths in Oregon at the time of his arrest last year, pleaded no contest in January to second-degree murder and is facing 16 years to life in state prison in connection with a plea deal reached with prosecutors.
Austin, now 39, testified that his longtime friend, Baker, told him that Sementilli wanted her husband dead, but Austin acknowledged that he did not personally speak to her about the crime.
Wrapping up her closing argument Monday morning, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told jurors that “t's very obvious that the defendant, along with her lover, murdered Fabio Sementilli along with assistance from Christopher Austin,” and that the murder was “committed for financial gain as well as for other motivations, in other words, for their future together.”
She also urged jurors to find true the lying-in-wait special circumstance allegation, saying that the woman's husband was “ambushed based on a secret plan or design that the defendant and her lover put into place,” and that Austin backed out of an effort to kill the victim a night earlier as he was picking up a take-out order at a restaurant.
“She's the one who destroyed so many lives and their entire family,” Silverman said.
In his closing argument, defense attorney Leonard Levine told the downtown Los Angeles jury Tuesday that his client was “guilty of a lot of things -- stupidity, duplicity, lying, adultery” -- but not murder.
“She was having an affair with someone who murdered her husband,” Levine said. “But she did not commit or orchestrate or conspire to commit the murder of her husband.”
“She has suffered for her choices -- and they were horrible,” the defense attorney said. “But she's not guilty of first-degree murder, of destroying a family, putting her daughter in danger of being murdered when she could have controlled the whole thing.”
Levine described Baker as a “Svengali,” saying that Sementilli made the “biggest mistake of her life” in becoming involved in an extramarital affair with him.
“Nothing good came from Mr. Baker, but he's gone for life” Levine said of Baker's plea and subsequent life prison sentence. “Now they want to complete the circle and send her away.”
In her rebuttal argument, Deputy District Attorney Heather Steggell told jurors, “She's been in on it the whole time ... This is a plan that they had together.”
The prosecutor said that even after Sementilli was arrested, she “still maintains no remorse, no guilt -- just sadness” that she and Baker can't be together.
Sementilli has remained behind bars since her arrest in June 2017, when she and Baker were charged with murdering her husband. A conspiracy charge was subsequently added against the pair. The two were indicted just over two months later on the same charges.
