Murder for hire nets porn star 10 years

A Post Falls porn star who pleaded guilty in Coeur d’Alene’s U.S. District Court to two charges of conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire was sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in federal prison.

Katrina L. Danforth, who used the professional name Lynn Pleasant and Lynn Passion online, originally pleaded not guilty to hiring a hitman to kill the father of one of her children. She took a plea deal in August that dismissed three of the felonies.

During a 20-minute allocution at Tuesday’s sentencing, Danforth accused the man she tried to kill of abusing her daughter and said she loved her children and was only trying to do what was best for them.

The lengthy statement, the facts of which were disputed by prosecutors, didn’t sit well with U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill, who called the speech troubling and a deflection of responsibility.

“I just don’t know what to make of that,” Winmill said.

As part of her speech, Danforth said defendants in similar cases have received less than a year in prison, but not the 10 years that prosecutors had asked for.

Prosecutors had played a recording for the court of a conversation Danforth had with a man she thought was a hitman, but who was an undercover federal agent.

Danforth met with the man in Montana and agreed to pay him $5,000 for the hit, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Traci Whelan.

“She had specific requirements that the hit man was to accomplish, such as (the victim’s) body had to be found and [she] did not care if others who lived in the home were harmed as long as her own child was not harmed,” Whelan said in a court document.

Danforth’s version of events — the court never found evidence that her daughter had been abused by the intended victim, or that Danforth had been raped by the intended victim — were unfounded, Whelan said.

“We disagree with her rendition,” Whelan said.

Calling Danforth’s speech “very callous and very cold-hearted,” Winmill adopted the prosecution’s sentencing recommendation, in large part because of Danforth’s lengthy allocution.

She had not taken responsibility, Winmill said, and appeared to believe her decisions were warranted.

“She still seems to be rationalizing and justifying her decision to have the father murdered,” Winmill said. “It’s hard to imagine a case where a long prison sentence isn’t necessary.”

Winmill denied a request to furlough Danforth so she could take care of a civil case that Whelan said may not be adjudicated for many months.

The judge, however, said he would recommend Danforth be placed in a federal prison in Dublin, Calif., at the defendant’s request. The Dublin facility is a low-security penitentiary for female inmates.