The ju umpire filed a lawsuit Wednesday against a woman accused of masterminding the murder of her husband, a well-known hairdresser, at a home she shared with her two daughters in Woodland Hills.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Ronald Cohen handed over the case to the ju after giving them a final set of instructions after completing about four days of discussion at Monica Semenrilli’s trial.
The 53-year-old woman is charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with her husband, Fabio Fabio on January 23, 2017, and stabs her death in the family’s backyard just before the couple celebrates their 20th wedding anniversary.
The murder charges include financial benefits on standby and special circumstances of murder for murder.
Her lover, Robert Baker, now 62, fought first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder in July 2023, and refused to approve the allegations of two special circumstances. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The same sentence Sementilli faces if she is convicted of being indicted.
Baker, who was called to the stands during the defense of the incident, insisted that the two’s mothers had nothing to do with the plot to kill their husbands.
Christopher Austin, the third defendant who worked as a parole and probation officer dealing with at-risk youth in Oregon at the time of his arrest last year, has lived in a state prison for 16 years in connection with a plea deal with prosecutors without giving up a dispute for a second-degree murder in January.
Austin, now 39, testified that his longtime friend Baker said Seledi wanted her husband, but Austin admitted that he had not personally spoken to her about the crime.
Concluding her closing discussion on Monday morning, Deputy Prosecutor Beth Silverman told the ju judge, “It is very clear that the accused, along with her lover, killed Fabio Cementilli with support from Christopher Austin, and the murder “in other words for other motives, and for their future.”
She also urged the ju apprentice to find an allegation of a true special situation, saying that the female husband “was ambushed based on the secret plan or design in which the accused and her lover were set up,” and that Austin had retreated from efforts to kill the victim while picking up a dose order at the restaurant.
“She’s the one who destroyed so many lives and all of their families,” Silverman said.
During his final discussion, defense attorney Leonard Levine told a ju judge in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday that his client was “a lot of foolishness, duplication, lies, adultery, but not murder, but “a lot of things.”
“She had a relationship with the person who murdered her husband,” Levine said. “But she did not commit, organize or conspire to commit her husband’s murder.”
“She struggles with her choices — and they were horrible,” the defense attorney said. “But she’s not a crime of first-degree murder, destroying her family and putting her at risk of being murdered when she could control her daughter all.”
Levine described Baker as “Svengari” and said that Semenriri made “the biggest mistake in her life” in her involvement in an extramarital affair with him.
“There was nothing good about Mr. Baker, but he was for life,” Levine said of Baker’s plea and the life prison that followed. “Now they’re trying to complete the circle and drive her away.”
During her rebuttal discussion, Associate District Attorney Heather Steggel told the ju judge, “She’s been working on it all the time…this is a plan they’ve had together.”
Prosecutors said that she and Baker cannot be together even after Semenriri is arrested, “no regret or guilt, just maintaining grief.”
Sementilli has remained behind the bar since her and Baker were accused of murdering her husband since their arrests in June 2017. The conspiracy fee was then added to the pair. The two were charged more than two months later with the same charge.
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