MUSKEGON COUNTY, Mich. — Julia Merfeld will spend at least the next five years and eight months in prison for trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband in April.
That hit man, as the viral video of the encounter shows, was an undercover state police officer.
“Fortunately, the two people who need to forgive me, have forgiven me. My husband, who is sitting behind me, and God has also forgiven me,” Merfeld, 21, said before her sentencing.
Her husband, Jacob Merfeld, asked that she receive no jail time.
“I know that my wife is a wonderful woman,” he said in court Tuesday. “She’s a Godly person.”
Chief Muskegon County Circuit Judge William C. Mariett said he would not be that lenient. He initially said Merfeld would receive a minimum of six years, and even though her minimum sentence is four months less than that, the maximum is 20 years.
