Would-be Victoria's Secret model Mary Katheryn Sharpski pleaded guilty recently to recruiting a man to kill her husband with a machete, although Frank Sharpski survived.
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You may recall the 50-year-old Fountain Valley woman had, in a previous trial, convinced a jury to vote 7-5 in favor of acquittal, which led to a mistrial in 2011:
Mary Katheryn Sharpski, Her Lover and His Butcher Friend Tried for Machete Attack on Her Husband
That's because prosecutors in the previous trial had opened an avenue of sympathy for Sharpski with a case that revealed she had endured years of physical and emotional pain from her 49-year-old husband before conspiring to have him bumped off in 2009 so she, her kids and her lover could make a fresh start in Wyoming.
In exchange for pleading guilty to attempted murder and mayhem, Sharpski is expected to be sentenced Nov. 8 to 10 years and four months in prison, with no credit for time already served in jail. Joel Garson, her attorney, told City News Service that will make it the equivalent of a 16-year sentence.
The Sharpskis took Michael Calvin Shores II in as a tenant at their two-bedroom Fountain Valley apartment after he lost his job as a security guard. Shores was to clean up the apartment and care for the couple's two daughters and son instead of paying rent, but by the spring of 2009, he and Mary Sharpski had become lovers.
They allegedly conspired to hire butcher Antonio Cinco Ortega of Santa Ana to kill Frank Sharpski in what would appear to be a robbery attempt. (I say allegedly because 42-year-old Shores has a trial pending. Ortega, 26, was convicted and sentenced in January to 25 years to life in prison.)
Around 5:30 a.m. on March 3, 2009, Frank Sharpski was in an alley outside his apartment, heading to the FedEx van he drove to work, when he was approached by a stranger wielding a machete with a three-foot-long blade.
Sharpski's skull was fractured, a thumb and fingers were severed, his nose was sliced off and he suffered several other machete wounds as he was left to die. His screams alerting neighbors–and several emergency surgeries–are what saved his life. He now uses a wheelchair and is missing fingers.
Antonio Cinco Ortega Gets 25 to Life in Violent Machete Attack for Victim's Wife and Her Lover
In fairness, here is a nicer photo of Mary Katheryn Sharpski:
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.