[KHTS] – A Canyon Country man accused of trying to pay another man $80,000 to have his wife killed took a plea deal Friday.

Dino Guglielmelli, 53, who lived in the Sand Canyon area of Canyon Country on Macmillan Ranch Road, was arrested in October for trying to have his wife killed.

Under the terms of a no contest plea, Guglielmelli will serve at least 85 percent of a 9-year sentence in state prison, said Deputy District Attorney Emily Cole.

“We based it on a lot of considerations,” Cole said of the offer. “We felt we had a strong case, but this really serves the interest of justice.”

Guglielmelli is due back in court June 18, when he will be formally sentenced and the victim, his wife, Monica Andreny, aka Monica Olsen, will also have a chance to give a victim statement.

The pair were in the middle of an acrimonious divorce that was not yet finalized when Guglielmelli was arrested.

He’s being held in Men’s Central Jail in lieu of $10 million bail while he awaits sentencing.

An earlier story:

A former Santa Clarita man implicated in an alleged murder-for-hire plot gave an exclusive interview Tuesday with KHTS AM-1220, trying to correct what he calls inaccurate media reports about his involvement.

Dino Guglielmelli, 53, who lived in the Sand Canyon area of Canyon Country on Macmillan Ranch Road, is being held at Men’s Central Jail in downtown Los Angeles in lieu of $10 million bail.

Monica Andreny

He’s awaiting trial on charges he tried to pay Rick Fuhrmann — a former contractor who worked in the Santa Clarita and Conejo valleys — $80,000 to kill Guglielmelli’s wife, Monica Andreny, a model and an aspiring actress who’s the name behind Skin by Monica skin-care products.

Fuhrmann said Tuesday he befriended Guglielmelli until he felt the situation was no longer safe for Andreny and he became concerned if he ended his friendship with Guglielmelli, then Guglielmelli would find someone else to kill his wife.

Fuhrmann set about keeping the business owner distracted from Guglielmelli’s growing obsession with retribution for his wife, Fuhrmann said.

The situation reached a boiling point for Guglielmelli during a domestic violence case against his wife, when Guglielmelli claimed his wife was lying in court, Fuhrmann said.

Fuhrmann testified about how Guglielmelli talk of having his wife arrested or killed. Escalating concern prompted Fuhrmann to contact authorities, he said.

“I couldn’t let that happen, no matter what the cost to me,” Fuhrmann said.

Back in 2009, Guglielmelli’s business, Creation’s Garden, had more than 200 employees and millions of dollars in assets, most of which were sold off earlier this year.

He had the resources to help Fuhrmann, and Fuhrmann sought Guglielmelli out as a business partner, but gradually became a friend before he became concerned for Guglielmelli’s wife.

“All I ever wanted was to start a small online supplement business,” Fuhrmann said, explaining how he came to know Guglielmelli. “I had a thought in February 2009, finding myself out of work and overweight and so on — my wife at the time was always buying diet pills so I looked into what all the hype was.”

Guglielmelli and Andreny, who also goes by Monica Olsen, were embroiled in bitter divorce proceedings and a custody fight when Guglielmelli, the former Creation’s Garden CEO, allegedly hired Fuhrmann to have his wife killed.

Guglielmelli’s legal troubles started shortly after Fuhrmann reported several recordings and statements made by Guglielmelli to a detective in the Sheriff’s Department’s Major Crimes Bureau.

The meeting between Fuhrmann and Sheriff’s Department officials set up an Oct. 1 lunch between Fuhrmann and Guglielmelli, in which Fuhrmann recorded Guglielmelli discussing the completion of an alleged $80,000 deal to have Andreny killed, according to evidence presented at Los Angeles County Superior Court in San Fernando.

The trial was delayed again April 23, when Deputy District Attorney Emily Cole turned over 500 monitored jailhouse phone calls Guglielmelli made to Guglielmelli’s defense attorney Tony Brooklier.

Both sides are expected back in court June 5, when trial is reportedly scheduled to start.

Fuhrmann, who was separated from everything important to him through this process, including steady work and his family, has been living out of state in fear of retribution for police cooperation, he said.

The Army veteran said his intention the whole time was to pacify Guglielmelli and keep him preoccupied, as Guglielmelli became more and more intent on having his wife killed.

Now he’s struggling with whether he should have gone to officials earlier with the recordings he made, as Brooklier seeks to make him out to be an opportunist, he said.

“(My friendship with Guglielmelli) become a daily trial of misdirection and manipulation,” Fuhrmann said, “but more important to me was making sure (Andreny) was not killed.”

A 90-minute recorded conversation with Guglielmelli, which Fuhrmann arranged with help from a Major Crimes Bureau detective, reveals Guglielmelli’s true intent in his own words, Fuhrmann said. A portion of this tape was played by the defense at Guglielmelli’s preliminary hearing.

While Brooklier was trying to characterize Fuhrmann as an opportunist who turned on Guglielmelli for his own gain when their business dealings didn’t work out, that’s just not the case, Fuhrmann said.

“I lost everything — I have no wife, I’m separated from my family and friends, I’m living in constant worry,” he said, listing all he’s lost since contacting authorities.

“It’s not a movie, it’s real and there is really no happy ending. Families have been destroyed, kids are separated from the parents, some are living in fear,” Fuhrmann said. “There are no winners, just the truth.”