Florida man gets 20 years for plot to kill judge, prosecutor


MIAMI – A 23-year-old man has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for plotting to kill a federal judge and prosecutor in Miami who handled a 2018 case in which he was found guilty of murder-for-hire.

U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom sentenced Matthew Alexander King on Friday on charges of retaliation against a federal judge and solicitation to commit murder, according to a news release from the U.S. State Attorney's Office.

King pleaded guilty to the charges on Feb. 10.

An assistant prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida handled the 2018 case in which King was accused of hiring a hit man to kill several family members of his estranged wife.

King was convicted and a federal judge sentenced him to 97 months in federal prison.

Court records show King then attempted to hire another hit man to kill the judge, the prosecutor, and six others, including an FBI agent who had investigated his case, a witness who had cooperated with authorities, his defense counsel, and the same three family members of his estranged wife whom he initially tried to have killed.

But King didn't know that the person he attempted to hire was actually an FBI undercover agent posing as a hit man, the news release said. King shared his plans with the agent while being secretly recorded on video.

Bloom ordered King’s sentence to run consecutive to the 97-month sentence that he is currently serving.