Illinois Man Sentenced to 97 Months in Prison for Trying to Arrange Florida Murder

CAPE GIRARDEAU - U.S. District Sarah E. Pitlyk on Tuesday sentenced an Illinois man to 97 months in prison for trying to have a business associate in Florida murdered.

At an initial meeting in Missouri in January of 2024, Ben Patrick Mullavey asked a former employee to kill Mullavey's business partner in Florida. That employee contacted authorities. In subsequent conversations, many of which were recorded by the FBI, Mullavey told the employee that he had been planning the murder for months and had conducted surveillance of the victim and had stolen a Florida license plate. Mullavey suggested the best time and place to commit the murder, how to avoid being identified on surveillance cameras and several ways of disposing of the victim's body.

On Jan. 13, 2024, the employee left Mullavey's home with orders to kill the victim, a crossbow, arrows, the stolen Florida license plate, handwritten directions to a restaurant located next door to the victim's business and $2,100 in cash.

In a victim impact letter, Mullavey's target said that since being informed that he was the target of a murder-for-hire scheme, he has lived in a "state of constant fear." Forced to abandon his business out of concern over the risk of being in a public place every day, he also lost his financial security, his apartment and everything inside it. "This is not just something that happened once. It is something that will affect me every day for the rest of my life," he wrote.

Mullavey, 66, of Mechanicsburg, in Sangamon County, pleaded guilty in April in U.S. District Court in Cape Girardeau to one felony count of use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of attempted murder-for-hire.

The FBI investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Shelton prosecuted the case.