A doctor who tried to hire assassins to kidnap and blackmail his wife has tried to sell his life story, calling it “50 shades of steroids” and claiming it offers “a lot of potential.” obtained a financial benefit,” it was revealed at his sentencing on Tuesday.
doctor Ron Ilga 57-year-old neonatologist in Spokane, who pleaded guilty to conspiring against his wife and a former colleague, was sentenced to eight years in prison in a dramatic three-hour hearing that included charges about non-consensual binding and some content to be read directly. his previously undiscovered letters.
U.S. District Judge William Fremming Nielsen told Ilg: “It’s really serious behavior, it’s disgusting, it’s vile. “The things you ask unknown people on the dark web to do to the people you love is unbelievable.”
Ilg was arrested in April 2021 on suspicion of hiring assassins on the dark web. Prosecutors said he sent messages under the username “Scar215”, instructing the killers to give his former colleague a “heavy beating” and break her arm. (Ilg was recently fired from the medical group where they both work—which his defense attorney says sent him into a spiral of depression.)
Weeks later, Ilg sent instructions through another website to kidnap his estranged wife, inject her with heroin, and threaten her until she agreed to cancel the divorce proceedings and go home. home with him. He allegedly offered a bounty if she agreed to be intimate with him and “keep quiet and tell no one about the kidnapping.” According to prosecutors, Ilg spent $60,000 in Bitcoin on schemes that were never carried out.
ilg pleaded guilty to two counts of threatening interstate commerce in August in exchange for a maximum sentence of five years on each count. In a sentencing memo, his lawyers sought 60 months in prison, alleging he was the victim of a mental health crisis and “deeply regrets his actions.” . Prosecutors asked for no less than 96 months, $30,966 in restitution, a $250,000 fine, and 36 months of supervised release.
Before his arrest, Ilg became entangled in a complicated love triangle involving his estranged wife and a mistress he was trying to fit into their relationship. The lover, who later became a key witness for the prosecution, told agents that Ilg locked her in a bunker outside his home and forced her to sign a “sex slave” contract in blood as a part of the “domination-submission” relationship. he asked her to join.
This love triangle is further complicated by Ilg’s prison romance with his former inmate’s wife. Like The Daily Beast previous report, Ilg met and became engaged to the woman by mail and phone while incarcerated in the Spokane County jail. Tuesday’s hearing was punctuated by a reading of Ilg’s recently discovered letters to his former fiancée — prosecutors say he is no longer engaged — showing him disparages his ex-wife and encourages his fiancée to reach out to his former mistress, who has issued a protective order against him.
In one letter, Ilg proposed a revenge plan, telling his fiancée to use a private social media account to post false information about a “leak” that allegedly showed his ex-wife. he’s behind the messages to the killers. He also wanted her to post a fabrication that his ex-wife slammed the door on when a reporter asked why she didn’t allow Ilg to visit their 8-year-old son. “[My ex-wife] not an innocent princess,” he wrote in a letter. “It would be eye-opening if somehow this information was posted online where she and everyone else could see it.”
In other letters, Ilg tried to trap his fiancée in a scheme to sell the rights to his life story using a twist in the 50 Shades franchise as an offering. He directs her to reach out to publishing companies and fantasize about building an “empire” together, suggesting they could make a million dollars a year after he’s released.
“This could be huge,” he wrote.
Prosecutors also played a recording of a phone call Ilg made in November while in custody, in which he told someone his story had “a lot of potential for a book sale” and “very likely to obtain a financial benefit”.
“This defendant wanted to make money from what he did,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Richard Barker said at the hearing. “This is not someone who has been missing for three and a half months… This is someone who continues to pose danger.”
The judge seemed to agree, sentenced Ilg to the highest possible sentence under his plea agreement, plus three years of probation. While acknowledging that Ilg had expressed remorse, Nielsen said his letters and behavior while in custody “make me wonder how serious that feeling of regret really is.”
Ilg’s ex-wife also called for the highest possible punishment in harsh witness testimony, in which she called him a “master manipulator and con man”. During their marriage, she said, Ilg forced her to conform to his dominant-submissive preferences, prompting her to call him “sir” and sign a “ridiculous set of rules.” ” to obey.
She said that many times she woke up at night to find herself tied up with ropes or chains, and she testified that Ilg once grabbed her by the neck and pinned her down on the bed while she was hugging her. their son. When she protested, she said, he would threaten to withdraw financial support or take her car or phone.
She said, even after she found a full-time job and started planning to run away, Ilg still parked her car outside her workplace or put a tracking device on her car. . She said that to this day, she still locks her office door between clients for fear that Ilg will send someone in to harm her.
“All I wanted to do was get out of a toxic marriage and be alone,” she said. “If.. he wasn’t caught, I don’t know what he would have done to achieve his goal.”
Ilg stumbled over his lengthy statement at the hearing, often trying to speak in tears. He apologized profusely to the victims and vowed to conduct morning prayers in their honor.
He also claimed to be on mental health rehab when he wrote a letter to his mistress begging her to marry him so she wouldn’t testify against him. At one point, the judge had to interrupt him as he began to detail the screams of other inmates who were also withdrawing at the prison. “I’m not sure we need to go into that,” Nielsen said.
Ilg previously served as the medical director of a multi-state infant management group and as the medical director at Maddie’s Place, a charity for children of drug-addicted parents. He was fired from the management team following a personnel investigation that he said focused on his sexual relationships with women.
At one point during the hearing, his defense attorney attempted to suggest that Ilg was once again “mistreated” for his surrogacy, this time by the government. Baker later told the judge that the prosecution had “no beef” with Ilg’s sexual orientation.
“The defendant was not persecuted in this case, sir,” he said. “He is being prosecuted for what he did.”
