Teacher Gets Prison for Attempting to Hire Hit Man

(Minneapolis, Minnesota) In early November, a 40-year-old teacher formerly at Benilde-St. Margaret's High School, Emily Roitenberg, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder stemming from trying to hire a hit man to kill her stepmother, Gale Fiskewold.

Roitenberg wanted money from the $8 million estate her father left to Fiskewold. Unfortunately, the hit man was an undercover agent who taped the conversation with Roitenberg.

"You've done it before, right?" she asked the purported hit man called J.J., who was actually an undercover agent for the state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Roitenberg then is heard giggling: "I can't ask you that. Dumb question."

J.J. asked her how she would like Gale Fiskewold killed. Roitenberg responded, "Whatever's not going to get you in trouble." [...]

In her statement to the court, Fiskewold said she had known Roitenberg since she was 11 and was anguished along with her father as Roitenberg repeatedly acted irresponsibly, taking $10,000 from her grandfather when she was in college. She said Roitenberg inherited $1.5 million from her father but spent it on cars, trips, gifts and drugs. "My husband thought the $1.5 million would be enough," Fiskewold said.

When she entered her plea, Roitenberg claimed no memory of hiring a hit man, but admitted it was her voice on the recordings.

As a result, Hennepin County District Judge Peter Albrecht sentenced Roitenberg to 10 years in prison.