Dalia Dippolito Hearing

Dalia Dippolito faces her third trial accused of hiring for $7000 an undercover police officer posing as a hitman to kill her her then-husband of six months, Mike Dippolito, in 2009.  Prosecutors allege she wanted his $250,000 in savings and their $225,000 townhouse.

On March 24th, Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley granted the state’s request to gag all attorneys from making any public comments on the murder for hire case. He ordered attorneys to limit their remarks to the news media, but he stopped short of imposing a full gag order sought by prosecutors.

Judge Kelley declined a request to remove California attorney Brian Claypool from Dippolito’s defense team, because of recent public comments that the State Attorney’s Office called “unethical and unprofessional” and harmful to the prospective jury pool.

According to the ruling, parties on both sides are prohibited from making “extrajudicial statements,” such as theories or opinions of the case or the people involved.

A motion has subsequently been filed by Dippolito’s attorneys that suggest the state is in violation of its own motion.

The motion refers to a YouTube video still posted online by the Boynton Beach Police Department of Dalia Dippolito’s arrest.

The video provides a brief description of the case and includes her reaction after an officer makes her believe her husband is dead.

The motion says the state should prove why it is not in criminal contempt of court for allowing evidence or facts of the case to remain public after the judge issued the gag order.

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Dippolito, 34, is scheduled to stand trial again in June.

In her first trial in 2011, a video of police officers approaching Dippolito at a staged murder scene in August 2009 went viral and was played at her trial.

Her lawyers argued that the investigation was tainted by Boynton Beach police, who were eager to be part of a reality show called “Cops.” The police department denies any wrongdoing and says it was only trying to gather evidence.

Jurors were also shown a video of Dippolito in a car with the fake killer for hire.

“I’m going to tell you how I’m going to do it and what exactly is going to get done,” the undercover officer is heard telling Dippolito in the 2009 video. He then goes on to say that he will break into their house and her husband “gets two in the head.”

“Between now and when it’s done, you know, you’re not going to have an opportunity to change your mind,” the undercover officer says.

“No, there’s no, like, I’m determined already, I’m positive, like 5,000 percent sure,” Dippolito tells him.

The jurors rejected Dippolito’s core defense that the episode was a ploy by Michael Dippolito, a convicted felon, to get on reality TV and become famous.

After just 3 hours deliberation by the jury Dippolito was convicted of solicitation to commit first-degree murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

That conviction was overturned on appeal.

Because of the great media hype, Dippolito wanted the judge to let attorneys question potential jurors individually, about their awareness of the case before her 2011 trial.

Palm Beach County Chief Circuit Judge Jeffrey Colbath’s refusal to allow the questioning was a mistake, so Dippolito’s conviction and 20-year prison sentence was overturned because the jury pool was tainted, the 4th District Court of Appeal said.

28 of the 54 prospective jurors raised their hands when asked if they had heard about the case.

Juror Linda Kniffin, of Lake Worth, said she was surprised and disappointed to hear her panel’s verdict was overturned, “because the evidence was so clear that she did it.”

Kniffin said she couldn’t speak for the other jurors, but said she saw no indication they had been exposed to publicity surrounding the case before jury selection. Kniffin added she had “never heard of Dalia Dippolito until I went for jury duty.”

In the second trial Judge Glenn D. Kelley declared a mistrial. At the end of the first day of deliberation the jury told the c ourt that they could not agree on a verdict. The judge sent the jury home to rest. The following day the jury stated “We the jury, after further deliberation, still cannot reach a unanimous verdict.”

“I must declare a mistrial,” Judge Kelley said.

Judge Kelley then sent forms to jurors, asking how they would have voted, and later, shared them with the court.

“I’ll just tell you, it was not a single holdout. … It was actually a 3-3 split,” he said.

During closing argument in the second trial, rumors that Dippolito had given birth to a child while on house arrest awaiting the start of the December 2016 retrial, were confirmed by defense attorney Brian Claypool.

The hushed pregnancy and the birth of Dippolito’s child had been the subject of tabloid rumors for months, but neither Dippolito nor her legal team would confirm those allegations until Claypool, at the end of a nearly two-hour closing argument, urged jurors to jurors to return Dippolito to her child.

Afterward, Claypool confirmed his words in court, but declined to provide any details about Dippolito’s son, including his age or the identity of his father. “You heard today in court Dalia Dippolito has a little boy. And that’s all we’re going to say,” Claypool told reporters.

Dippolito had been on house arrest since shortly after her 2011 conviction while lawyers pursued the ultimately successful appeal that earned her the retrial.

WPBF 25 News obtained the house arrest records for Dippolito, and according to those records and other sources, learned new details about when and where Dippolito gave birth.

On March 17, 2016, records show Dippolito visited her OB-GYN physician at 1:30 p.m.

Nine hours later, a map tracking her GPS ankle monitor showed Dippolito at West Boca Medical Center, at 10:37 p.m.

According to a source familiar with her stay in the hospital, Dippolito gave birth the next day, March 18, to a baby boy.

In a January 6th 2017 status hearing following her mistrial, attorney Greg Rosenfeld asked Judge Kelley to modify Dippolito’s house arrest so she could go on outings with her son. Dippolito is currently confined to her house and back patio.

Judge Kelley declined to modify the parameters of the house arrest, but did say he would consider individual and specific requests.