Latest news with #MonicaSementilli
CBS News
06-05-2025
- CBS News
Co-conspirator in prominent LA hairdresser's death sentenced to 16 years to life
The third person connected to the 2017 Woodland Hills murder of famed hairdresser Fabio Sementilli was sentenced on Tuesday to 16 years to life in prison. Christopher Austin, 39, pleaded no contest in January to second-degree murder in a plea deal reached with prosecutors. Austin was part of the trio that killed Fabio Sementilli and served as a key prosecution witness in the trial of Sementilli's wife, Monica. Last month, jurors found Monica Sementilli guilty of first-degree murder, and that the 53-year-old masterminded the stabbing death of her husband for financial gain. Her lover, Robert Louis Baker, now 63, was sentenced to life in prison in 2023 for stabbing and killing Fabio Sementilli in his own home. He had pleaded no contest to one count each of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He also admitted the special circumstance allegations of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait. The prosecution said that the two lovers conspired to kill him, with plans to obtain the husband's life insurance proceeds, around $1.6 million. Baker, a convicted sex offender and former adult movie actor, testified as part of the defense that his lover had nothing to do with the planning or the murder of her husband. He said he murdered his lover's husband because he "wanted her to be around me and with me more -- like all the time." Baker had solicited Austin to assist him in killing Fabio Sementilli. Austin testified that his longtime friend, Baker, told him that Monica Sementilli wanted her husband dead, but Austin said that he did not personally speak to her about the crime. He told jurors that he and Baker stabbed the hairdresser to death after Monica Sementilli left the home unlocked. Fabio Sementilli was an established hairdresser who served as vice president of education for Wella, the salon professional division of Procter and Gamble. Fabio Sementilli was 49 years old when he died. He and Monica Sementilli had two daughters together.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Yahoo
Wife of celebrity hairstylist found guilty of orchestrating his murder
The wife of celebrity hairstylist Fabio Sementilli has been found guilty of plotting his murder in order to avoid a messy divorce and receive millions in life insurance payouts. On Friday, Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced Monica Sementilli had been convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder, with special circumstances that the crime was financially motivated and involved 'lying in wait.' Monica Sementilli is the third person convicted in the high-profile case. Her co-defendant and lover, Robert Louis Baker, previously admitted to killing the popular hairdresser at his Woodland Hills home on Jan. 23, 2017. According to Hochman's office, Baker stabbed Fabio Sementilli as he sat on his patio and then fled the scene in the victim's stolen Porsche. Fabio suffered stab wounds to his neck and torso, and he was found later by his daughter. Detectives at the time called his killing a 'particularly vicious murder.' In March, Baker, a former porn star and convicted sex offender, took the stand in Monica Sementilli's trial and claimed full responsibility for the killing, saying that it was a crime motivated by passion. A third defendant, Christopher Austin, described as Baker's accomplice, was convicted of second-degree murder in the case. Austin, a former Oregon parole officer, was with Baker during the deadly stabbing, holding the victim down and covering his mouth as as Baker stabbed him multiple times. Austin countered Baker's claim that Monica Sementilli wasn't involved in the killing, testifying that she intentionally left the door unlocked for them. 'This was a cold and calculated crime motivated by greed and betrayal,' Hochman said in a news release issued Friday. 'We extend our deepest sympathies to Fabio Sementilli's loved ones as they continue to mourn his tragic loss.' He continued by thanking his prosecutorial team and the detectives who 'painstakingly' pieced together the sordid details of the high-profile case over the course of eight years, 'overcome the lies and deception of Monica Sementilli and her lover who thought they had made a clean getaway.' Monica Sementilli is scheduled to be sentenced on June 23 at the Clara Shortridge Foltz Criminal Justice Center in downtown Los Angeles. Baker was previously sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for killing his lover's husband. Hochman says Monica Sementilli is eligible for that same sentence. Christopher Austin, meanwhile, received a 16-year sentence for second-degree murder for his role in the violent killing. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Yahoo
L.A. hair mogul's wife guilty of murder in deadly love triangle
Monica Sementilli was convicted Friday of sending her lover to kill her husband, celebrity hairstylist Fabio Sementilli, in a brutal stabbing at the couple's luxury Woodland Hills home eight years ago. Sementilli, 51, gasped and broke down in tears, clutching her hands over her mouth as the verdict was read. She will face life in prison without the possibility of parole at sentencing after being convicted of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Fabio Sementilli was found dead at the couple's home in January 2017 and police initially thought he was killed in a botched home invasion, pointing to "knock-knock burglars" who had been ransacking expensive homes in the San Fernando Valley at the time. The hair mogul suffered multiple wounds to his face, jawline, neck, chest, and thigh. But detectives were puzzled as to why an $8,000 Rolex was left on Sementilli's wrist at the crime scene. Read more: 'Betrayal, greed and lust': Did a hair mogul's wife mastermind his killing? A jury now decides Blood found at the scene was soon linked to Robert Baker, a convicted sex offender and former porn star later who began an affair with Monica Sementilli after serving as her racquetball coach at a West Hills fitness club. While prosecutors have painted Sementilli as the "mastermind" behind the slaying as she stood to gain $1.6 million in life insurance payouts, Baker took the stand during the two-and-a-half month trial and insisted he killed the hair mogul for love. 'I murdered him because I wanted her,' Baker testified last month. 'She had nothing to do with it." Baker was previously convicted of Fabio's murder and sentenced to life without parole. Video evidence presented by Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman, however, showed Monica Sementilli watching a live feed of the area shortly before the murder to ensure Baker had a clear path to her husband. Veteran LAPD homicide detective Mitzi Roberts also testified Monica Sementilli and Baker exchanged 95 messages through an encrypted messaging app called Viber on the day of the killing and 180 messages the day before. While Monica Sementilli has denied all wrongdoing and publicly grieved her husband, an executive at the hair-care company Wella, she was involved in a torrid affair with Baker. The pair sexted during her husband's funeral, according to Silverman, who said the newly-widowed Monica even sent nudes to Baker during the service in Toronto. Read more: Killer says ex-lover had no role in her husband's slaying: 'I murdered him because I wanted her' Baker's accomplice, Christopher Austin, also testified for the prosecution last month and insisted Baker told him Monica directed the murder. Austin, a former Oregon probation officer, said he never spoke to Monica directly but Baker made clear his lover wanted her husband "gone." 'Everything he did he did after he got a text message, which told me he was talking to her via text message.' Austin testified. 'I did not hear him talk to her on the phone ... but everything happened in sequence.' Defense attorney Leonard Levine has argued that prosecutors are focusing too much on the sordid details of his client's affair, which is not itself evidence she plotted a killing. "Adultery is not murder. ... Everything she did was to protect the affair, not to cover up the murder,' he said. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Yahoo
Killer says ex-lover had no role in her husband's slaying: 'I murdered him because I wanted her'
To hear convicted murderer Robert Baker tell it from the witness stand, his ex-lover Monica Sementilli was never part of a conspiracy to fatally stab her famous hairstylist husband and make it look like a home invasion gone wrong. "I murdered him because I wanted her," Baker told jurors recently in the high-profile Los Angeles murder trial. "She had nothing to do with it," the star defense witness testified before a packed downtown L.A. courtroom. Monica Sementilli has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder with special circumstances and conspiracy. The reason he killed the husband of his ex-lover, Baker said, was because he was fed up with sharing her and living a life of secret liaisons. Baker is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the killing. More than eight years after Fabio Sementilli was stabbed to death on the patio of his Woodland Hills home, Baker tried his best to bolster his one-time lover's defense. But under cross-examination by Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman, Baker struggled to explain why he has provided multiple versions of the murder — including statements in a seven-page letter he gave to Monica Sementilli after he agreed to plead no contest to the Jan 23, 2017, murder. "You have repeatedly changed your story to fit the evidence in this case, correct?" Silverman said. Read more: 'She wanted him dead'; Killer says widow of slain hairstylist plotted bloody knife attack Baker acknowledged that he had tried deliberately to cover up the identity of an accomplice, Christopher Austin. "I lied about the second person," Baker told the prosectuor. The convicted killer insisted he lied in the letter — and initially to Monica Sementilli's defense team — because those accounts were "unofficial." He said he always told the truth under oath, "when I swore." In more than 50 days of trial, prosecutors have argued that Monica Sementilli "was the mastermind" of the plot to kill her husband, a Canadian hairstylist and executive of the German hair-care giant, Wella. Her goal was to pocket $1.6 million in life insurance and avoid the complications of getting a divorce, prosecutors allege. Baker, 62, is a convicted sex offender and former porn star who met Monica Sementilli as a racquetball coach at West Hills LA Fitness and became her lover. Asked by Silverman to explain why, on the day of the murder, he and Monica Sementilli both deleted the encrypted Viber app on their phones, Baker answered: "it was glitchy." Following their arrest, the pair were overheard discussing the phone and messaging app, and whether authorities could break in and read their messages in the aftermath of the slaying. Baker also admitted to buying burner phones, one of which was in Monica's purse when the LAPD arrested them in her Ford Mustang GT six months after the slaying. In court Friday, Silverman displayed a photo taken at Fabio Sementilli's wake, where Baker can be seen sitting in the area where the killing occurred. Monica Sementilli is seen just feet away in the image. Silverman asked Baker whether he slipped the burner phone to her at the wake and he denied it. But Silverman pointed out that Monica Sementilli had used the phone just days later in Canada, during funeral proceedings in Toronto — Fabio Sementilli's hometown. Baker also admitted under questioning that the widow sent him naked photos of herself with her wedding ring still on her finger. "Everyone grieves differently," Baker declared. Read more: At least 20 L.A. County probation officers face criminal indictment, sources say Baker's version of events contradicted testimony given by Austin,the prosecution's star witness. Austin had fled the killing with Baker in the dead man's Porsche — a detail authorities didn't discover until October, when they arrested Austin, an Oregon probation officer. Austin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Fabio Sementilli's death and got 16 years to life. He told the jury recently that the stylist's widow "wanted him dead." He testified that he and Baker stabbed the hairstylist to death after Monica Semetelli left the door to the couple's house unlocked, and that they had previously been to the house and knew the layout. "He told me... she is gonna leave the door unlocked," Austin said. Austin said he never heard directly from the defendant, but Baker told him she wanted her husband "gone" and afterward told him it was for the insurance money. "Everything he did he did after he got a text message, which told me he was talking to her via text message." Austin testified. "I did not hear him talk to her on the phone ... but everything happened in sequence." During cross-examination, defense attorney Leonard Levine made Austin explain how he had changed his story from when he was initially taken into custody and told police that they intended only to rough up the hairstylist. Baker said the pair found the hairstylist in a patio area and stabbed him several times with an eight-inch hunting knife. Baker said that at the time, he did not realize that Austin also stabbed Sementilli. They then fled in the hair mogul's car and he dumped the knife in a hole and tossed his clothes near a bowling alley. A minute after the men drove off, daughter Isabella Sementelli discovered her father's bloody body and called 911, where an operator guided her through a desperate yet failed attempt to save him. Baker said he tried to create an alibi by appearing at the LA Fitness before buying cleaning supplies to scrub the Porsche. He abandoned the vehicle in an area with no cameras, and took Austin to a bus station so he could catch a flight out of town. At home, Baker said he got "rid of everything that belongs to her" to hide his relationship with the defendant. He said they didn't talk for a while but resumed the relationship after meeting at a Glendale bar. "I never told her we killed her husband," he said. Separated and behind bars, the couple continued their relationship through three-way calls using a third-party number that connected them and coded "kite" messages. Baker acknowledged that in one secret message sent to him in prison, Monica Sementilli asked him to send her something personal of his. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies later seized a toothpaste tube that contained Baker's semen, and prosecutors say he intended to have it delivered to the defendant. During his testimony, Baker described their relationship as one in which he was in control. When they were in cells visible to each other, Baker said he told Monica Sementilli to partially disrobe and perform a sexual act, which he said she did. Baker said the defendant also shaved his initials into her pubic hair and called him "master" and "maestro." He later told the court that he had also performed sex acts for the defendant while in his cell, calling it "jailing." Baker, however, said they did not discuss the killing over the years despite numerous jailhouse conversations. Eventually, his ex-lover figured out that he killed his husband, he said. He realized this "the day she called me a f— murderer," he said. Before he pleaded no contest, he claimed that prosecutors told him he could get a far lesser sentence — much like Austin's — if he implicated his ex-lover. He said he told prosecutors, "I can't do that. That would be a lie," but conceded under cross-examination that never saw a plea offer on paper. During opening statements, Blair Berk, co-defense counsel, said there was no evidence of her client plotting to kill. "There is no statement, no text, no recorded phone call," she said. Berk said her client was "duped into believing that Robert Baker" didn't do it. Read more: LAPD officers accused of making racist and sexist remarks in recruiting office; mayor calls it 'outrageous' Initially, when police responded to the bloody scene, investigators considered the killing to be the work of so-called knock-knock burglars who plagued parts of San Fernando Valley. Sementilli had seven sharp force wounds to his face, jawline, neck, chest and thigh, along with two minor wounds on his left arm. While the home's main bedroom was ransacked, the hair mogul's $8,000 Rolex watch remained on his wrist, piquing the interest of detectives, About a month after the crime, LAPD Det. Ryan Verna testified that Baker's DNA was tied to blood evidence at the crime. Baker's DNA had previously been captured after he was convicted of committing six sex crimes with a minor in 1993. Baker, on the witness stand Friday, grew angry and refused to answer questions about that conviction, which saw him dismissed from the U.S. Army — where he was a staff sergeant — and sentenced to two years in prison. The judge removed the jury from the courtroom and then ordered Baker to answer the questions under the threat of striking all his testimony and ordering jurors to ignore it. He admitted he was twice re-arrested for failing to register as a sex offender. As the death investigation continued, detectives noticed the killers had removed the home's video recording system, which wasn't easily found. As investigators tied the widow and the former porn star together, a forensic technology expert testified that he recovered instructions to Baker on how to access the home security DVR. LAPD Det. Mitzi Roberts testified that Monica Sementilli was so distracted that she nearly missed an exit from a Target, showing jurors a security video on a large courtroom screen. For weeks before the arrests, LAPD investigators surveilled the widow and Baker as they became suspects, seeing them together in cars, bars, a comedy club, and on a luxury trip to Las Vegas. After detectives pulled the pair over in Monica Sementilli's black Mustang, with Baker at the wheel, officers placed them in the back of a police car together. The video recording system captured Monica allegedly telling Baker, 'Deny everything and don't talk." Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
16-03-2025
- Los Angeles Times
Killer says ex-lover had no role in her husband's slaying: ‘I murdered him because I wanted her'
To hear convicted murderer Robert Baker tell it from the witness stand, his ex-lover Monica Sementilli was never part of a conspiracy to fatally stab her famous hairstylist husband and make it look like a home invasion gone wrong. 'I murdered him because I wanted her,' Baker told jurors recently in the high-profile Los Angeles murder trial. 'She had nothing to do with it,' the star defense witness testified before a packed downtown L.A. courtroom. Monica Sementilli has pleaded not guilty to charges of murder with special circumstances and conspiracy. The reason he killed the husband of his ex-lover, Baker said, was because he was fed up with sharing her and living a life of secret liaisons. Baker is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the killing. More than eight years after Fabio Sementilli was stabbed to death on the patio of his Woodland Hills home, Baker tried his best to bolster his one-time lover's defense. But under cross-examination by Deputy Dist. Atty. Beth Silverman, Baker struggled to explain why he has provided multiple versions of the murder — including statements in a seven-page letter he gave to Monica Sementilli after he agreed to plead no contest to the Jan 23, 2017, murder. 'You have repeatedly changed your story to fit the evidence in this case, correct?' Silverman said. Baker acknowledged that he had tried deliberately to cover up the identity of an accomplice, Christopher Austin. 'I lied about the second person,' Baker told the prosectuor. The convicted killer insisted he lied in the letter — and initially to Monica Sementilli's defense team — because those accounts were 'unofficial.' He said he always told the truth under oath, 'when I swore.' In more than 50 days of trial, prosecutors have argued that Monica Sementilli 'was the mastermind' of the plot to kill her husband, a Canadian hairstylist and executive of the German hair-care giant, Wella. Her goal was to pocket $1.6 million in life insurance and avoid the complications of getting a divorce, prosecutors allege. Baker, 62, is a convicted sex offender and former porn star who met Monica Sementilli as a racquetball coach at West Hills LA Fitness and became her lover. Asked by Silverman to explain why, on the day of the murder, he and Monica Sementilli both deleted the encrypted Viber app on their phones, Baker answered: 'it was glitchy.' Following their arrest, the pair were overheard discussing the phone and messaging app, and whether authorities could break in and read their messages in the aftermath of the slaying. Baker also admitted to buying burner phones, one of which was in Monica's purse when the LAPD arrested them in her Ford Mustang GT six months after the slaying. In court Friday, Silverman displayed a photo taken at Fabio Sementilli's wake, where Baker can be seen sitting in the area where the killing occurred. Monica Sementilli is seen just feet away in the image. Silverman asked Baker whether he slipped the burner phone to her at the wake and he denied it. But Silverman pointed out that Monica Sementilli had used the phone just days later in Canada, during funeral proceedings in Toronto — Fabio Sementilli's hometown. Baker also admitted under questioning that the widow sent him naked photos of herself with her wedding ring still on her finger. 'Everyone grieves differently,' Baker declared. Baker's version of events contradicted testimony given by Austin,the prosecution's star witness. Austin had fled the killing with Baker in the dead man's Porsche — a detail authorities didn't discover until October, when they arrested Austin, an Oregon probation officer. Austin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Fabio Sementilli's death and got 16 years to life. He told the jury recently that the stylist's widow 'wanted him dead.' He testified that he and Baker stabbed the hairstylist to death after Monica Semetelli left the door to the couple's house unlocked, and that they had previously been to the house and knew the layout. 'He told me... she is gonna leave the door unlocked,' Austin said. Austin said he never heard directly from the defendant, but Baker told him she wanted her husband 'gone' and afterward told him it was for the insurance money. 'Everything he did he did after he got a text message, which told me he was talking to her via text message.' Austin testified. 'I did not hear him talk to her on the phone ... but everything happened in sequence.' During cross-examination, defense attorney Leonard Levine made Austin explain how he had changed his story from when he was initially taken into custody and told police that they intended only to rough up the hairstylist. Baker said the pair found the hairstylist in a patio area and stabbed him several times with an eight-inch hunting knife. Baker said that at the time, he did not realize that Austin also stabbed Sementilli. They then fled in the hair mogul's car and he dumped the knife in a hole and tossed his clothes near a bowling alley. A minute after the men drove off, daughter Isabella Sementelli discovered her father's bloody body and called 911, where an operator guided her through a desperate yet failed attempt to save him. Baker said he tried to create an alibi by appearing at the LA Fitness before buying cleaning supplies to scrub the Porsche. He abandoned the vehicle in an area with no cameras, and took Austin to a bus station so he could catch a flight out of town. At home, Baker said he got 'rid of everything that belongs to her' to hide his relationship with the defendant. He said they didn't talk for a while but resumed the relationship after meeting at a Glendale bar. 'I never told her we killed her husband,' he said. Separated and behind bars, the couple continued their relationship through three-way calls using a third-party number that connected them and coded 'kite' messages. Baker acknowledged that in one secret message sent to him in prison, Monica Sementilli asked him to send her something personal of his. Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies later seized a toothpaste tube that contained Baker's semen, and prosecutors say he intended to have it delivered to the defendant. During his testimony, Baker described their relationship as one in which he was in control. When they were in cells visible to each other, Baker said he told Monica Sementilli to partially disrobe and perform a sexual act, which he said she did. Baker said the defendant also shaved his initials into her pubic hair and called him 'master' and 'maestro.' He later told the court that he had also performed sex acts for the defendant while in his cell, calling it 'jailing.' Baker, however, said they did not discuss the killing over the years despite numerous jailhouse conversations. Eventually, his ex-lover figured out that he killed his husband, he said. He realized this 'the day she called me a f— murderer,' he said. Before he pleaded no contest, he claimed that prosecutors told him he could get a far lesser sentence — much like Austin's — if he implicated his ex-lover. He said he told prosecutors, 'I can't do that. That would be a lie,' but conceded under cross-examination that never saw a plea offer on paper. During opening statements, Blair Berk, co-defense counsel, said there was no evidence of her client plotting to kill. 'There is no statement, no text, no recorded phone call,' she said. Berk said her client was 'duped into believing that Robert Baker' didn't do it. Initially, when police responded to the bloody scene, investigators considered the killing to be the work of so-called knock-knock burglars who plagued parts of San Fernando Valley. Sementilli had seven sharp force wounds to his face, jawline, neck, chest and thigh, along with two minor wounds on his left arm. While the home's main bedroom was ransacked, the hair mogul's $8,000 Rolex watch remained on his wrist, piquing the interest of detectives, About a month after the crime, LAPD Det. Ryan Verna testified that Baker's DNA was tied to blood evidence at the crime. Baker's DNA had previously been captured after he was convicted of committing six sex crimes with a minor in 1993. Baker, on the witness stand Friday, grew angry and refused to answer questions about that conviction, which saw him dismissed from the U.S. Army — where he was a staff sergeant — and sentenced to two years in prison. The judge removed the jury from the courtroom and then ordered Baker to answer the questions under the threat of striking all his testimony and ordering jurors to ignore it. He admitted he was twice re-arrested for failing to register as a sex offender. As the death investigation continued, detectives noticed the killers had removed the home's video recording system, which wasn't easily found. As investigators tied the widow and the former porn star together, a forensic technology expert testified that he recovered instructions to Baker on how to access the home security DVR. LAPD Det. Mitzi Roberts testified that Monica Sementilli was so distracted that she nearly missed an exit from a Target, showing jurors a security video on a large courtroom screen. For weeks before the arrests, LAPD investigators surveilled the widow and Baker as they became suspects, seeing them together in cars, bars, a comedy club, and on a luxury trip to Las Vegas. After detectives pulled the pair over in Monica Sementilli's black Mustang, with Baker at the wheel, officers placed them in the back of a police car together. The video recording system captured Monica allegedly telling Baker, 'Deny everything and don't talk.'
