A New Jersey hairdresser has been indicted on federal charges for allegedly attempting to hire a hitman to kill her ex-boyfriend, a Philadelphia police officer, and his teenage daughter.
Jaclyn Diiorio, 28, faces two counts of using interstate commerce facilities in an attempt to commission a murder-for-hire, according to the Department of Justice. The federal indictment was filed Sept. 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
Diiorio was arrested in Gloucester Township in April after she allegedly began communicating with a confidential informant she met on Tinder. Prosecutors stated that from March 31 to April 3, Diiorio exchanged phone calls and text messages with the informant, expressing a desire to have her ex-boyfriend, identified as Philadelphia Police Officer Matthew O’Hanlon, killed. She also allegedly revealed his profession.
Authorities reported that Diiorio and the informant first met on March 31 at a Wawa in Runnemede, following initial communications. Diiorio allegedly met the informant again on April 4 at a Dollar General, where she provided a $500 down payment. She reportedly promised to pay approximately $12,000 in installments to the informant, whom she believed was a hitman.
The informant alerted Camden County detectives, who then contacted the Philadelphia Police Department to warn O’Hanlon and his 19-year-old daughter. Gloucester Township Police Department Special Response Team officers arrested Diiorio at her residence, where they also found an unlabeled bottle of pills suspected to be alprazolam.
Initially, Diiorio was charged by Camden County with two counts of first-degree attempted murder, one count of first-degree conspiracy to commit murder, and one count of third-degree possession of a controlled dangerous substance. However, these county charges were dismissed following the federal indictment, and federal prosecutors are now handling the case.
Prosecutors indicated that the April plot was not Diiorio's first attempt to arrange the killings. She allegedly told the informant that she had previously been deceived by others who provided her with fabricated evidence, such as “fake pictures,” purporting to show completed contract killings.
The relationship between Diiorio and O’Hanlon had reportedly ended about a month before she allegedly initiated the murder-for-hire plot.
Diiorio is currently in federal custody. A detention hearing was scheduled for Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Scott W. Reid. Diiorio’s attorney, Robert Gamburg, stated that she will enter a not guilty plea and had previously filed a motion to dismiss the county charges, arguing that the evidence was obtained through entrapment. Gamburg described the informant as an independent operator seeking payment, whose communications with Diiorio were allegedly unmonitored by detectives for days leading up to her arrest.
If convicted on the federal charges, Diiorio faces up to 20 years in federal prison.