Dad gets 22 years for hiring hit man to kill wife, mother-in-law, daughter (Beverly, Massachusetts)

Dad JOHN ORLOWSKI has been given 22 years in prison for trying to hire a hit man to wipe out his wife, mother-in-law, and daughter.

http://news.bostonherald.com/news/regional/view/20090811beverly_man_gets_22_years_for_family_murder_plan/srvc=home&position=also

Beverly man gets 22 years for family murder plan
By Laurel J. Sweet Tuesday, August 11, 2009

A federal judge today sentenced a Beverly man convicted of trying to hire a hit man to kill his wife, mother-in-law and daughter to 22 1/2 years in prison, ignoring a “perfect storm” of excuses offered up by his lawyer.

John Orlowski, 51, a suburban house husband with no prior criminal history, will serve eight months more than the maximum punishment for murder-for-hire recommended by federal sentencing guidelines.

U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P. Woodlock, who - clearly troubled by the involvement of the frightening father’s now 9-year-old daughter in his failed 2007 conspiracy to wipe the slate of his family life clean - earlier this year rejected Orlowski’s willingness to serve only 12 years in exchange for his guilty plea.

“I read the psychiatrist report. I recognize the difficulties Mr. Orlowski has faced in his life, but none of them provide an excuse - and barely an explanation - for this,” Woodlock said today.
“Here we have a young girl who had a close relationship with her father, who is left with such a profound sense of insecurity it’s hard to imagine.”

Today’s sentencing hearing was attended by Orlowski’s former wife and mother-in-law, both of whom declined to speak afterward to a Herald reporter.

The mother-in-law testified today that Orlowski was embittered by his own father’s lack of affection and involvement in his son’s life and chose to take it out on his daughter, rather than end the cycle of abuse.

In pleading with Woodlock to let his client off with only 15 years, Orlowski’s attorney James Roche said he was waging an inner struggle with a “perfect storm” of stresses when he offered a street thug $2,000 to execute his loved ones, including popping pills for chronic pain, depression over his failing marriage and the trauma of having allegedly been sexually abused by a priest as a child.

Orlowski admitted today, “My only concerns were selfish concerns. I’m extremely remorseful and regret what I did. Every day I am thankful that the crime I sought to help commit did not happen.”

But Woodlock, after listening to the would-be hit man’s secretly recorded conversation with Orlowski, said the tape is “chilling, and it reflects not an individual who is in a ‘perfect storm,’ but someone who had chosen to undertake the most heinous crime - the execution of the closest members of his immediate family.”

Should Orlowski ever be released, he will be on GPS supervised probation for three years and forbidden to have any contact whatsoever with his intended victims.