SURREY – An Indo-Canadian woman faces seven years in jail after she pleaded guilty in her involvement in a murder-for-hire plot to kill her boss, the court heard at her sentencing hearing held on Tuesday at a Surrey courtroom.
Amarjit Kaur Lally, 46, who will be sentenced in January in Surrey provincial court, has pleaded guilty to one count of counseling to commit an indictable offence for trying to take a contract out on Gurcharan Singh Brar’s life.
Initially charged with two counts of counselling to commit an offence that was not committed, Amarjit Kaur Lally, who was 45 years old at the time of her arrest last April, pleaded guilty in June to one of the charges.
Delta police launched a six-week investigation into Lally’s activities after receiving a tip in early 2010. Lally tried to hire two undercover police operatives to carry out the murders of two people she knew, reported the Province newspaper.
Crown prosecutor Satinder Sidhu called the case “quite serious” and said that while such charges are laid from time to time, they’re not common.
Police said Lally was motivated by money.
The court heard Lally borrowed $10,000 from the couple, with an interest rate set at $100 per month for each $1,000 borrowed. Lally worked at D and G Furniture, partly owned by Mr. Brar. The Brars testified the loan and interest arrangements were Lally’s idea, reported the Now newspaper.
“She said she would swear on her kids that she would not rip us off,” Gurcharan Brar told the court. “Basically, she made us greedy and said she would return it in two or four months.”
Lally, on the other hand, claimed she only borrowed $1,000 to pay off some bills and paid all but $200 back.
The court also heard that Lally’s husband had abused her husband. Her lawyer, Russ Chamberlain, suggested Gurcharan Brar threatened to tell her husband about the loan, knowing it would cause her a lot of problems at home, if she didn’t pay out what he demanded. Brar denied this.
Police came to Brar’s furniture store to tell him Lally was trying to have him killed.
“When they told me the name, I became shocked that someone wanted to kill me,” Brar told the court. “I was scared.”
The court heard that Lally had tea with Brar’s wife, Harbans, two days before the hit was supposed to happen. Sidhu told the court that Lally had remarked to the undercover cops “Good, glad that’s over with, or words to that effect,” after the bogus hit men showed her a fake photo of Brar with a head injury. Asked how she felt about that, there was a long pause. “What can I say?” Lally replied.
The court heard that Lally told the undercover officers she would be beaten if they found out she had a debt.
“Her actions were calculated and deliberated,” Sidhu said during her closing submissions. “The accused blames everyone else but herself for her predicaments.”
“She was desperate to have Mr. Brar killed,” Sidhu said. “She did what she had to do to get the job done.”
“They don’t pop up that often, fortunately,” she said.
Sidhu said she’s seeking a prison term of five to seven years for Lally with respect to the Brar case.
Defence lawyer Russ Chamberlain confirmed on Monday that Lally has been on bail since April 2010, subject to a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew and required to live with her sister-in-law. Chamberlain said that, to his knowledge, Lally has been “completely compliant” with her bail conditions.
Although Chamberlain said he could not offer much in the way of a comment because the case remains before the courts, he did offer some insight into his strategy.
“I’m going to do the best I can to keep her out of jail,” Chamberlain said.
Lally, a mother of two, was also charged with trying to have her 70-year-old mother-in-law killed, but has pleaded not guilty to that accusation. The court heard she had taken out a $20,000 life insurance policy on the elderly woman. Crown said that charge will be stayed.
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