2 Suspected of Plotting a Murder-for-Hire

Police have arrested two people on suspicion of plotting a murder-for-hire scheme last year revolving around a child custody battle, Police Sgt. Tom Boylan said.

Raymond Robert Mackiejczak, 59, of New Jersey, the alleged “middleman” in the scheme, was arrested last week, Boylan said. Mae Marie Sebaly Miner, 68, of Newport Beach was arrested Friday. She allegedly hired a hit man to kill her son-in-law, David M. Leland, 48, of Capitola, Calif., Boylan said.

Police gave this version of events:

The investigation began in September after police learned that a transient named Patrick O’Neill had been allegedly overheard in a Costa Mesa bar asking where he could get a gun for a murder he had been hired to commit.

Investigators with the Costa Mesa Police Department and the Orange County district attorney’s office arrested O’Neill in September after he allegedly drove to Capitola armed with a .38-caliber revolver. After months of questioning O’Neill, police said they determined why Leland was the alleged target.

Police said Leland had stepped up efforts to gain custody of his 8-year-old son in divorce proceedings, causing a rift with Miner, his mother-in-law. Believing that Leland had a chance to get full custody of the boy, Miner allegedly asked Mackiejczak to hire a hit man.

“It took us a long, long time to find [Mackiejczak],” Boylan said. “We knew who he was [but] didn’t know where he was.”

After making contact with sources who had invested in an ostrich farm that Mackiejczak was involved with, police traced him to a New York City hotel last week. He was brought to California on Friday and is being held in Orange County Jail on $100,000 bail. He is expected to be arraigned today on charges of attempted murder and solicitation of murder.

Investigators arrested Miner at a Newport Beach hotel on suspicion of similar crimes. She was booked at the Costa Mesa Police Department jail before being freed on $250,000 bail.

O’Neill, 59, remains in Orange County Jail, where he has been since his 1997 arrest. He is awaiting trial on charges of attempted murder, solicitation of murder and for being a felon in possession of a firearm.