STAUNTON — A local man sentenced to 16 years in prison in 2010 after trying to hire a hitman to kill a couple is headed back to prison after he recently contacted a family member of one of the victims.
On Jan. 23 in Augusta County Circuit Court, Judge Shannon Sherrill sentenced 74-year-old Thomas J. Laguardia Sr. to eight additional years in prison for violating his probation.
Laguardia tries to hire hitman
In 2009, the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office was tipped off to a plan involving Laguardia, who was searching for a hitman to kill a local couple.
Meeting in the parking lot of a Verona fast-food restaurant, Laguardia negotiated with an undercover investigator from the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office who was posing as a hitman. After handing over half of a $400 down payment, Laguardia provided the bogus hitman with an address for the couple, who he wanted killed at their home. However, it was the wrong address and the people living there reported to authorities that their garage had been broken into several times and said they once found food crumbs inside a vehicle with the radio turned on…