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Essam Eid was hired by Marissa Mark to kill a love rival in 2006 - around the same time he was solicited by Sharon Collins to kill her own partner. Niall Carson/PA Archive
Hitman For Hire

US woman gets six-year sentence for hiring 'Lying Eyes' hitman

Marissa Mark hired Essam Eid to kill a love rival – and and was given a sentence exactly the same length as Sharon Collins.

A PENNSYLVANIA WOMAN has been sentenced to six years in jail after hiring professional assassin Essam Eid – the same man who was involved in a similar ‘Lying Eyes’ case in Ireland.

Marissa Mark had pleaded guilty in September to visiting the ‘HitmanForHire.net’ website in September 2006 and using stolen credit cards to pay a $19,000 deposit for Eid’s services.

She had wanted him to killed Anne Lauryn Royston, a Los Angeles-based mortgage broker who was dating her ex-boyfriend, the Jersey Journal reports.

The court records also detail how Eid and his girlfriend visited Royston to explain that a hit had been taken out on her, and offered to spare her if she paid the remaining $18,000 in fees he was due.

The case bears remarkable similarities to the ‘Lying Eyes’ case for which Eid became known in Ireland – when he had been solicited to kill Sharon Collins’ partner PJ Howard and his two sons.

Having been paid €15,000 by Collins to kill Howard, Eid informed Howard of his commission and offered not to take the order if Howard paid him around €100,000.

In both cases, the soliciting party – Mark and Collins – were sentenced to six years in jail. Collins lost an appeal against her sentence in October. Mark, an immigrant from Trinidad, will be deported from the United States when she completes her six-year jail term.

The Morning Call says Eid, an Egyptian-born poker dealer based in Las Vegas, is currently serving a 33-month sentence in California for extortion charges relating to the case.

He was also convicted to six years in jail in the ‘Lying Eyes’ case, for extortion, but his sentence was backdated to the time of his arrest in 2006. He was extradited shortly after completing that sentence.

Collins is scheduled for release in March 2013.

American woman pleads guilty to hiring ‘lying eyes’ hitman

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