Woman charged with hiring hit man to kill lawyer's wife
AUBURN, N.H. -- A New Ipswich woman has been charged with hiring a hit man to kill the wife of a prominent lawyer.
Court documents say Katherine Mandola, 27, was arrested last month and charged with criminal soliciting.
Police say they received a tip that Mandola asked her roommate for help finding someone to kill Wendy Branch of Northwood, wife of Manchester lawyer B.J. Branch. Police said the roommate reported Mandola said she had been having an affair with Branch, and she wanted Mrs. Branch out of the way.
Branch's law firm said Thursday there was no affair, and that news reports citing the woman's alleged motivation are further traumatizing a family that already was shocked by the alleged plot.
"There is an impression being created (that) he had an affair with this woman, which he did not, and that impression is causing a lot of grief to the family involved," said Branch's law partner, Jon Meyer.
"The point is that this particular woman was a client -- she had some clearly obsessive problems -- but there was no personal relationship. And whatever she may have said to other people is not true," Meyer said.
In a statement, the firm said Branch expressed concerns about the woman while representing her, and arranged to only see her when others were present or, if no one was available, to only meet her in a conference room with the door open.
Mandola's court-appointed lawyer, public defender Joseph Malfitani, did not immediately respond to a message left at his office.
Police say Mandola paid an undercover state trooper $1,000, showed him where Branch lived, said she wanted the murder to look like a hunting accident and promised to pay $3,000 more after the shooting. The police affidavit says the informant believed that B.J. Branch was not aware of any murder plot.
Wendy Branch is a deputy clerk at the Hillsborough County Superior Court's northern office in Manchester. B.J. Branch is a partner at the Manchester law firm Backus, Meyer, Solomon & Branch.
According to an arrest affidavit filed in Auburn District Court and unsealed this week, police received a tip through the New Hampshire Drug Task Force that Mandola had repeatedly asked her roommate, a confidential informant, for help find someone to kill Mrs. Branch.
An undercover state trooper posing as the hit man reported having several telephone conversations with Mandola and then, on the Monday before Thanksgiving, drove with her to Northwood so she could show him where Wendy Branch lived.
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