Frisco man acquitted in murder-for-hire case after claiming rogue government informant entrapped him

Eskandar Molavi won his federal kidnapping trial by putting forth a rarely-used and almost never successful defense: entrapment.

The suburban dads met at a Chili's restaurant in Frisco. But they were not there to chat about their kids, who attended the same school.

The neighbors discussed the hiring of a hitman named "Iceman" who worked for a Mexican drug cartel. The job: Kidnap a former business partner and force him at gunpoint to sign away his rights to a gas station, according to federal court records.

That March 2018 meeting was a key event in the federal kidnapping case against Eskandar Molavi. It contributed to his arrest. And likely led to his acquittal, on the grounds of entrapment — a rare event in federal court.

The feds used a longtime government informant named Eric Hill to make the case against Molavi.

Hill, 48, was supposed to get Molavi, 70, on tape discussing his willingness to hire the hitman, which he did. But Hill talked too much. He told Molavi that his friend the hitman was a racist prison gang member who would kill anyone for even the most minor offense.

The "hitman" was actually an undercover FBI agent. But because Molavi secretly recorded that conversation on his phone, a Dallas federal jury was able to hear as Hill allegedly made the hitman sound so dangerously unstable that Molavi felt pressured into hiring the hitman or risk becoming a victim himself.

The jury in March acquitted Molavi on all four counts against him after a five-day trial. They apparently agreed that Hill, working as an agent for the government, had planted the scheme in Molavi's head and then cajoled him with threats and harassment to pursue it.

Hill could not be reached for comment. Molavi declined to comment.

Molavi's attorney, Michael Kawi, said his client is an Iranian immigrant who built a successful life in the U.S. and spent a year behind bars awaiting trial. "Mr. Molavi insisted on his innocence from literally day one," Kawi said.

Molavi's trial was held in March 2019 at the Earle Cabell Federal Building, a U.S. federal courthouse in Dallas.
Molavi's trial was held in March 2019 at the Earle Cabell Federal Building, a U.S. federal courthouse in Dallas. (Daniel Carde / Staff Photographer)

Entrapment defenses are extremely rare in federal court and almost never successful, according to legal experts. That's because two important elements have to be proved: that a defendant lacked the predisposition to commit the crime, and that government agents persuaded him to do it.

To lack predisposition, a defendant must have had no previous interest in committing the crime, and he must have been hesitant or unwilling to do so when urged. Molavi, a retiree, had no criminal record and had never been in trouble, Kawi said.

Prosecutors said Molavi was furious about losing his Garland gas station to Hossain Makvandi, 64, another Iranian immigrant, in a contentious lawsuit. They said Molavi believed the Rockwall businessman had swindled him out of his life savings.

But at the same time, Hill was trying to avoid indictment in a federal firearms case and eager to work again for the DEA as an informant, which he thought could help his chances, according to court records.

U.S. District Judge Jane Boyle allowed Molavi to use an entrapment defense over the government's objections.

Assistant U.S. Attorney P.J. Meitl had argued that Hill wasn't on the payroll of the DEA or FBI at the time and therefore wasn't an agent of the government. But he acknowledged that Hill was under the "direction and supervision of the FBI," who told him to meet with Molavi and to record their conversations.

The U.S. attorney's office and the FBI declined to comment on the case.

The lawsuit

Kawi said his client emigrated to the U.S. during the 1980s and became an investor who opened a successful gas station. He obtained his U.S. citizenship and settled in Frisco. His children went to good schools.

Makvandi and Molavi equally owned the Shell station in Garland for at least a decade, but they eventually disagreed on how to run it. In 2015, Makvandi sued Molavi to take control of it. Makvandi could not be reached for comment.

Molavi told a mental health nurse in March 2017 that his ex-partner had "swindled him out of his savings," according to a government filing. Because of it, he couldn't pay for his daughter's college, the document said.

Hossain Makvandi
Hossain Makvandi

Prosecutors said Molavi had faked mental incompetence during the lawsuit before escalating his conduct.

"This evidence reveals Molavi's motivation for the crime and intent underlying the crime," Meitl said in a filing. "At first he stalled, then he lied and misled, and ultimately, he turned to criminal behavior."

Around the same time, Hill met with a prosecutor and DEA task force officer about helping them make drug cases in the Dallas area, court records say. Hill became a paid DEA informant.

His work led to the prosecution of several people and the seizure of about 30 pounds of liquid methamphetamine in Laredo, according to the government. But in September 2017, he was cut off, court records show.

Hill was desperate for more government work, Kawi said. That's because he was facing possible federal charges out of New York for gun running, according to court records.

Molavi and Makvandi settled their lawsuit in November 2017, with Molavi being bought out for about half a million dollars, according to Kawi and court records in the case.

"By all accounts, Molavi was bitter and angry at the settlement," Meitl later wrote in a court filing.

The prosecutor wrote that Molavi had invested so much in the fight that he believed "criminal activity to be the necessary next step to achieve his goal."

But Kawi said Molavi was ready to put the unpleasantness behind him and move on. Then Hill contacted him.

The car sale

Molavi and Hill knew each other because of their kids but they never liked each other due to a heated run-in some years earlier, according to Kawi. Molavi didn't know about Hill's secret life as a government informant.

During a meeting about a used car Molavi had for sale, Hill mentioned Molavi's business dispute and the lawsuit, Kawi said. Molavi tried to brush him off, but Hill mentioned a friend of his who could possibly help.

Eric Hill
Eric Hill(Frisco police)

Molavi finally agreed to talk to the friend. But the next time the two Frisco dads spoke, Hill told Molavi that his friend worked with a Mexican cartel and that they "do bad stuff," Kawi said.

"This is not what he signed up for. He immediately tries to back out, and Hill's response is, 'Too late, the guy's coming down,'" Kawi said.

But Hill went to his DEA handler, who reported to the FBI a potential murder-for-hire plot, court records show. Hill claimed that Molavi had approached him about kidnapping his former business partner and forcing him to sign over his gas station to him.

Hill told federal agents that Molavi wanted the man flown to Mexico and murdered if he didn't agree to it, according to prosecutors.

"He oversold them at that point," Kawi said. "Whether it was because he was just out of his mind or desperate ... I don't know."

FBI agents met with Hill for the first time in February 2018 and told him to record his phone conversations with Molavi, court records show.

The meeting

Hill at the time believed he was "still on the hook" for the firearms case out of New York, Kawi said. He kept calling Molavi and eventually got him to agree to meet at a Chili's restaurant in Frisco, he said.

Kawi called it a "major event" for the defense. His client, he says, recorded the entire meeting on his iPhone. Unaware, Hill made some statements that would later prove troublesome for the prosecution.

He told Molavi he could wind up dead if "he did anything to upset" the hitman. Hill also told him his friend was a member of the Aryan Brotherhood racist prison gang who "hates people like you and me." He said the man was already in town and had spent money there.

But when Molavi continued to demur about meeting with the hitman, Hill told him, "You put me in a bad spot," Kawi said. Hill knew all about Molavi — his kids, their schools, his home address, his businesses.

The Homeboys Shell gas station in Garland that Eskandar Molavi used to own and which led to his indictment for an alleged murder-for-hire plot.
The Homeboys Shell gas station in Garland that Eskandar Molavi used to own and which led to his indictment for an alleged murder-for-hire plot. (Jason Janik / Special Contributor)

Two FBI agents later acknowledged to the jury that they would never have told a cooperator to say such things, Kawi said. The agents, "to their credit," told the jury it could cause an innocent person to be entrapped, said Kawi.

When the undercover agent met the next day with Molavi and Hill, Molavi agreed to pay him $20,000 to kidnap Makvandi and force him to sign over the gas station business, according to prosecutors. He gave the agent all of Makvandi's information and told him to kill him if he refused.

The agent said the murder would cost $50,000. Molavi gave him $500 as an initial payment, court records show.

In April 2018, Molavi was indicted on charges of solicitation to commit kidnapping and attempted kidnapping. In February 2019, the government filed a revised indictment, charging Molavi with attempted extortion, attempted kidnapping, and two counts of use of facilities in interstate commerce to commit extortion.

Meitl, the prosecutor, argued that Hill was a "private citizen acting alone" and therefore could not have entrapped Molavi.

Just days before the trial, Meitl wrote in a brief that Hill "may have seen the value in notifying the DEA of a potential crime, and hoped that such notification would garner him some credit" with prosecutors and help him avoid an indictment.

But that didn't make him an agent of the government, he added.

Meitl cited an excerpt of a phone call between Molavi and the undercover FBI agent in which Molavi said he wanted to shoot his ex-business partner in front of the gas station. The prosecutor quoted Molavi as saying: "And then I'm going to go to the jail."

During the trial, Hill claimed the talk at Chili's was just two men joking around, Kawi said. Hill became combative on cross-examination and admitted to lying about being a drug user, Kawi said.

Eskandar Molavi and his wife (center) pose with his lawyer, Michael Kawi (eft) and Kawi's investigator, Roen Serna, on the day of the verdict.

Hill's criminal history includes a 2016 conviction in Denton County for possessing drug paraphernalia.

The verdict in the federal trial came after less than eight hours of jury deliberation, Kawi said.

He said Hill made the past year of his client's life "a living hell," but added that Molavi is "getting back on his feet."

Hill's attorney, James Whalen, said he couldn't comment on alleged threats from Hill because he didn't know the specifics. As to Hill's motivations, Whalen said he "wasn't trying to save his own skin because he already had."

Chris Roberts, a law professor at the University of Texas who directs the school's criminal defense clinic, said entrapment is rarely successful as a defense because a significant portion of the public generally trusts law enforcement not to be dishonest.

But the use of informants can lead to problems, he added.

That's because informants typically have an incentive to produce results due to charges hanging over their heads, he said. Substantial assistance with a case for an informant can mean reducing a charge or sentence, or avoiding criminal prosecution altogether, Roberts said.

"You can only imagine the incentive someone has to produce that result," he said.

Eight days after the verdict, Hill was arrested at a McAllen airport for attempting to fly two Colombians to San Antonio in a Cessna, federal court records show.

He was charged with five counts related to the smuggling and harboring of unauthorized immigrants and has since pleaded guilty.

Kevin Krause. Kevin has worked for The Dallas Morning News since 2003, and he has covered federal criminal courts for the past six years. Kevin has been a journalist for 26 years Kevin is a multiple recipient of the Stephen Philbin Award for excellence in legal reporting. Kevin earned a BA from Boston University. @KevinRKrause



Crime in The News

Crime in The News


By signing up you agree to our privacy policy

BlueConic Segments

BlueConic Profile Data