The only word that I can use to describe this case is “bizarre.”
-I watched the Dateline Special.
-I watched WPTV’s coverage of Ms. Dippolito’s Lawyers Brian Claypool and Greg Rosenfeld, after the second trial was declared a mistrial with a hung jury.
-I watched the clips on Youtube from the reality television series Cops.
-I read all the articles from The Palm Beach Post and the Miami New Times.
The more I know about this case, the less I am able to reach a conclusion. Did Dalia Dippolito solicit a hit-man to kill her husband? Well...maybe. Michael and Dalia Dippolito both have brow-raising pasts. It’s safe to say that neither of them are the innocent angels they would have you believe them to be. Somewhere, in between all the messy, perplexing and bizarre details, is the truth.
Michael Dippolito is 12 years older than his wife, Dalia Dippolito. He is not only an ex-crack addict and alcoholic, but at 22 years old he was arrested for possession and intent to deliver drugs. This was in Philadelphia before he fled to Florida. There is still an active warrant for his arrest in Philadelphia. A second arrest was made three years later, in 1996, when he offered an undercover Broward County sheriff’s deputy a whopping 15 dollars to have sex with him. In Florida, he has worked for the Rubbo Family as a telemarketer in a boiler room that recruited people to invest in the foreign currency market. He and his fellow telemarketers just kept the customers’ money. The Rubbo’s have ties with the Bonanno crime family, one of the five families that dominate organized crime in America (In other words, the Bonanno’s are a part of the American Mafia). Dippolito eventually branched out on his own and was caught, plead guilty to fraud, was sent to jail, got out, and is on parole until he pays restitution to all the people he took 100,091 dollars from. A client, and victim, of the boiler room fraud claims that Dippolito makes consistent payments every month, but they are only 8-10 dollars a month. Dippolito later started his own marketing business which is financially shady and is currently being investigated.
Dalia Mohammed was 13 when her family moved from New York to Boynton Beach, FL. Her parents are divorced, she went to college (I don’t know if she finished), and somehow eventually became an escort. Ms. Dippolito may be a call girl, but she does, in fact, have a realtor’s license. She claims she was having a “business meeting” with Mr. Dippolito when they first met. He claims he called an escort service and she showed up. There are phone records of Ms. Dippolito texting clients and side lovers, during the first 6 months of their marriage. Supposedly, she stole 100,000 dollars from her husband, Michael Dippolito, and this may not be all that surprising. She took money and the ring from an ex-fiance in California before she moved back down to Florida.
That was just the backstory for both of them. Their “love” story begins in 2009. After Michael and Dalia had a “business meeting,” Michael quickly divorced his wife at the time and five days after the divorce was finalized he married Dalia. They had a rocky marriage and were in a fragile financial situation because of Michael. Dalia claims he was domestically abusing her. A neighbor called the Police one night, claiming she could hear the “drug dealer” and his girlfriend fighting. When Police showed up, they both said they were having a dispute over money. None of Michael’s ex-girlfriends or his ex wife have backed up Dalia’s domestic violence claim. The ex-wife said Michael was not abusive to her and Dalia has never pressed charges for domestic against Michael. Michael claims he gave Dalia the deed to his townhouse and 100,000 dollars to pay off the restitution quicker so they could follow though on travel plans outside of Florida. Dalia said she would chip in 91,000 dollars to help him. When Michael gave her the deed and the money, he claims she wouldn’t give it back. So to “make up” for stealing the money, she lied to him and told him she was pregnant. Apparently, that was all he needed to hear to quickly forgive her.
If you think this story is bizarre now, wait ‘til I get to the actual crime. Dalia had a friend with benefits that she hooked up with occasionally. This friend eventually became an informant for the Boynton Beach Police. Supposedly, he went to the police because he was worried that his “friend” (Dalia Dippolito) would actually follow through on her word about finding a hit-man to kill her husband. This informant told police that she had planted drugs in Michael’s car on a few occasions to have him locked up again. So, police bugged the informant’s car and recorded audio and video of Dalia talking to the informant about finding someone to kill her husband. The Boynton Beach Police then sent in an undercover cop to pose as the hit-man. They again recorded video and audio of Dalia saying she was “5,000 percent sure” she wanted her husband dead. Dalia followed the plan of the undercover cop posing as the hit-man and went to the gym before 6 A.M. a week later.
Here’s where everything becomes blurry and confusing. All of this undercover work was included when the episode aired on the television series Cops. The Boynton Beach Police went all out. They set up a fake crime scene, they took Michael to the station, they called Dalia and told her to come home, they broke the news to her that Michael was “dead” and they brought her down to the station. The police broke the news to her that they caught everything on camera and she would be charged with Solicitation of Murder-For-Hire. Dalia did something that is pretty common actually, she consistently denied that she had anything to do with her husband’s murder-for-hire. The first person Dalia called from prison, shockingly, was Michael. She asked him to get her a lawyer. Michael said he would, if, and only if, she would sign the deed to the townhouse back to him. Dalia said she wouldn’t sign anything, and with that, Michael hung up. Dalia’s defense during the first trial was that she knew about the Cops show and was in on Michael’s idea for “fifteen minutes of fame,” but she wasn’t the one who hired a hit-man.
With all the footage and audio on Dalia in the car with both the informant and the undercover cop, a jury didn’t buy it and announced a “guilty” verdict. Dalia received an appeal and got two new lawyers. In fact, Greg Rosenfeld said in the WPTV coverage that he took the case on pro bono. Brian Claypool and Greg Rosenfeld had “new” evidence and a different story for Dalia Dippolito; she was a woman taken advantage of and framed for hiring a hit-man to kill her husband by the Boynton Beach Police. They claim that the footage of Dalia was contaminated and tapered with. Claypool and Rosenfeld also claim that the Police bullied and threatened the informant and that is why the informant did not testify against Dalia in the first trial. The police informant did testify for her in the second trial. And on top of all that, the Boynton Beach Police also destroyed evidence that supports Dalia- according to Claypool and Rosenfeld. Dalia’s lawyers must have been very convincing with the “new” evidence because the jury of 6 was split down the middle in their verdict. The judge declared the trial a mistrial. State Attorney of Palm Beach County, Dave Aronberg, is filing for a third trial for the Dippolito case.
The problem is that all the evidence is not presented to the public. I find it very difficult to make a decision on whether or not I think she is guilty because of the “bits and pieces” the public is exposed to through the media. Even the Dateline special left out several details. Do I think she’s guilty? Most likely. It’s more probable that she did want him dead, but it’s not impossible for her to be set up. Steven Avery was set up by the Manitowoc Police Department in Wisconsin. If you think about it, this case is about another problem that we are facing in America: the erosion of trust in our government and formal institutions.
