A Luzerne County Correctional Facility Inmate has been sentenced to an additional 15 to 30 years in state prison after orchestrating plans to kill 2 law enforcement detectives and an informant.
According to our news gathering partners at the Times Leader, William James Lynn, 27, admitted to arranging to pay thousands of dollars to kill the detectives and the informant while he was in prison for drug trafficking offenses in March and April 2020.
Judge David W. Lupas imposed the sentence on Lynn today; the court records claim that Lynn approached another inmate looking for help in hiring a hit on the individuals in order to prevent them from testifying against him on the case. The inmate then sent a letter discussing Lynn's intentions to the DA's office which led to an investigation by State Police Organized Crime Task Force.
As stated by the Times Leader:
According to court records, Lynn told the inmate about his drug case, saying he needed to get out of prison before he 'lost everything.' Lynn said he, 'needed something done,' referring to wanting the detectives and informant dead, court records say... Lynn was placed in contact with a 'hitman,' who was an undercover trooper. After a series of phone calls and letters from jail, Lynn proposed to pay a deposit of $3,200 and offered 'ice,' a common slang term for crystal methamphetamine.
During recorded phone calls between the "hitman" and Lynn, he agreed to pay a $2,500 deposit with a pledge to pay a full amount of $8,000 once the informant was killed. Lynn had his girlfriend meet the man at a location in Wilkes-Barre Township on April 1, 2020; when she handed the cash over to the undercover trooper, she was detained at the scene.
According to court records, a handgun with an altered serial number was found inside Lynn's vehicle that his girlfriend drove to meet the hitman; she claimed that Lynn said the cash was being used to hire a private investigator.
Lynn pleaded guilty to charges on September 27th and was sentenced today on three counts of soliciting to commit criminal homicide, two counts of criminal use of communication facility, and a single count of possessing instruments of crime.