Lovers were to split money
AKRON, Ohio — The wife of a doctor gunned down along the Ohio Turnpike planned the crime and promised half of her multimillion dollar inheritance to her lover if he killed him, the lover testified Monday.
"She wanted to get what was owed to her," Damian Bradford testified about Donna Moonda, who he said put the plan in motion after complaining of being dissatisfied with the $1 million offer by her husband, Dr. Gulam Moonda, for a divorce.
Moonda, 48, faces the death penalty if convicted in U.S. District Court of hiring Bradford to kill her husband.
Donna Moonda had a prenuptial agreement that limited her to only $250,000 in a divorce. The doctor's will, however, promised her millions plus $676,000 in insurance policies and their home.
Bradford, the prosecution's star witness, said he was to receive half of Gulam Moonda's estate, estimated to be worth $3 million to $6 million, for killing him.
"My job was to make it look like a robbery gone bad," said Bradford, who has pleaded guilty to interstate stalking and a gun charge and will serve a 17Z\x-year prison sentence in exchange for cooperating with authorities.
Bradford said on the day of the shooting May 13, 2005, he followed the couple as they left their home in Hermitage, near the Ohio state line, and pulled in behind them when Donna Moonda stopped their car along the turnpike about 30 miles south of Cleveland. He ran to the passenger side of the car and confronted Gulam Moonda, 69, and then shot him.
After the shooting, he turned around on the turnpike and headed back to Pennsylvania, throwing Moonda's wallet and the 9 mm gun used to shoot him out the window.
Throughout the trial, the defense has contended that Bradford is a liar who acted alone.
Bradford said he and Moonda had not practiced the plan on the turnpike and he hadn't received money in advance.
"Whose plan was it? Was it Chaos' plan or Donna's plan?" Synenberg said, using Bradford's street name.
Referring to her by his nickname of "baby girl," Bradford, 25, of Monaca, testified that it was Moonda who initiated the couple's relationship after the two met in court-ordered rehab.
She was sentenced to rehab after pleading no contest to stealing the painkiller fentanyl from the hospital where she worked; he was a low-level cocaine dealer from Pittsburgh.
He testified she began leaving messages for him at the home he shared with his girlfriend, pestering him to move out and giving him thousands of dollar to get an apartment and buy a car.
Moonda showered Bradford with gifts, including clothes and jewelry, gave him and his friends Christmas gifts in 2004 and picked up the tab for his monthly living expenses, shopping trips and meals out, Bradford testified.
