A woman arrested on Monday conspired with her jailed boyfriend at the Centre County Correctional Facility in a plot to murder a confidential informant in a drug case against him, according to state police at Rockview.
Amanda L. Zortman, 46, of Clearfield County, and Mark C. Hackett, 63, are accused of planning to deliver a lethal dose of fentanyl to an informant who purchased drugs from Hackett on behalf of law enforcement during an investigation last year.
Zortman was arraigned Monday night on charges of solicitation of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. Charges in the case have not yet been filed against Hackett.
Another Centre County jail inmate told state police in October that Hackett was attempting to hire a hitman and had offered him $10,000 to kill the informant, according to an affidavit of probable cause. The plan, police wrote, was for Zortman to pick up the man when he was released from rehab and drive him to Huntingdon, where he would provide or directly inject the informant with a “hotshot” of fentanyl.
Between October and February, investigators reviewed recorded calls and messages in which Hackett used veiled language to discuss the plot with Zortman, initially telling her that he had “a solution to our problem,” that involved calling another person for “a couple pounds of the special good meat,” according to the affidavit. The other inmate also communicated with Zortman about his release and arrangements for picking him up.
A state trooper wrote that throughout the communications, Zortman took “substantial steps to plan and facilitate the murder” of the informant.
Police also spoke to the informant, who said Hackett was trying to have him killed and that a few days after he moved out of his residence someone had broken in.
Zortman was arraigned on Monday night by District Judge Kelley Gillette-Walker and denied bail.
A preliminary hearing his scheduled for March 12.
