SAN ANTONIO, Texas A Texas millionaire was sentenced to life in prison on Thursday for hiring a hit man who killed his ex-wife while her two-year-old quadruplets played nearby.
U.S. District Judge Ed Prado gave Allen Blackthorne, 45, two life sentences and fined him $250,000 for his part in the November 1997 murder of Sheila Bellush, who was remarried and living in Sarasota, Fla. when she was killed.
Prado said Blackthorne, who made a fortune selling medical equipment, had no chance for parole under federal sentencing guidelines.
Blackthorne was convicted in July of asking golfing buddy and bookie Daniel Rocha to find someone to kill his former wife after she got their two teenage daughters in a bitter custody battle.
He insists he was not guilty and has appealed the conviction.
One of his daughters, 15-year-old Daryl Bellush, told the court on Thursday she hated her father.
"What would make me happy is that the next person he talks to is Lucifer," she said.
Rocha testified in Blackthorne's trial that he hired acquaintance Samuel Gonzalez for the job, who then passed it on to his cousin, Jose Luis del Toro.
Del Toro pleaded guilty to entering Bellush's Sarasota home, shooting her in the face and slashing her throat. Police found her babies, whom she had with her second husband James Bellush, crawling in the woman's blood.
Rocha and Del Toro received life sentences while Gonzalez got 19 years after he agreed to cooperate with prosecutors.
(Reuter)