Ex-model Tara Lambert, who tried to hire undercover Ohio cop as hitman to kill her stepdaughters’ mother and pulp her body in a wood chipper, jailed for five years
Ex-model who tried to hire a hitman to kill her stepdaughters’ mother and put her body in a wood WOOD chipper is jailed
Ex-model Tara Lambert, aka Tara Arbogast was sentenced on Wednesday to spend for five years in prison
In July 2015, Lambert, 35, provided a $125 down payment to a ‘hitman’ to kill Kellie Cooke
She wanted Kellie Cooke, the biological mother of Tara’s two stepdaughters, put down after complications of a custody deal with her then husband, who was previously married to Kellie, becoming cumbersome
The assassin was actually an undercover cop who recorded the conversation
Lambert and Cooke were fighting over visitation rights for Cooke’s daughters
The ex-model had pled guilty to a count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and was sentenced to seven years in prison on the charge in 2016
An appeals court overturned that conviction in 2017 because of an error in the original indictment
She gets credit for time served from the earlier conviction
Tara Lambert, [right] aka Tara Arbogast, it is alleged in July 2015 provided a $125 down payment to an undercover police detective posing as a killer-for-hire to murder Kellie Cooke.
A former model was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to trying to hire a hitman to kill the mother of her two stepdaughters.
Tara Lambert aka Tara Arbogast, a former Ashville, Ohio model pled guilty to a murder plot for hire of her husband’s ex wife in which she suggested using a wood chipper to dispose of body parts.
Lambert, 35, in July 2015 provided a $125 down payment to an undercover police detective posing as a killer-for-hire to murder Kellie Cooke, suggesting he pulp her remains in a wood chipper.
Although Lambert denied paying the assassin during her plea hearing on Wednesday, she pleaded guilty anyway to a single count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder.
Tara Lambert, [left] sitting with her attorney in court during her plea hearing and sentencing on July 12
Lambert had sought modifications to the custody arrangement, only to be presumably stymied by Cooke.
Tara Lambert at her police interview
Although Lambert denied paying the assassin during her plea hearing on Wednesday, she pleaded guilty anyway to a single count of conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. She is pictured during a police interview, image undated
Lambert was sentenced to seven years in prison on the charge in 2016. An appeals court overturned that conviction last year, saying there was an error in the original indictment. She will get credit for time served from the earlier conviction.
The former model is married to Brandon Lambert, The Columbus Dispatch reported. He is the father of Cooke’s two teenage girls, who were Lambert’s stepdaughters in 2015.
The two women argued bitterly about visitation rights, which is what led Lambert to arrange for Cooke to be killed.
‘I need her away. Gone,’ Lambert told the detective.
‘Just put her in a chopper, you know like one of those lumberjack chopper things.’
Tara Lambert was earlier cleared of conspiring to murder Kellie Cooke’s husband, Shawn, seen [left], with and Kellie, if he was at home when the hitman came to kill his wife.
Tara Lambert in court during her trial
Lambert was earlier cleared of conspiring to murder Mrs Cooke’s husband, Shawn, if he was at home when the hitman came to kill his wife.
In court on Wednesday, Kellie Cooke’s statement was read out by her daughter, 18-year-old Aspen Lambert.
Physiologist Jolie Brams previously told the jury that Lambert was ‘developmentally challenged’ and said she had drink and drug problems, ‘I knew what you were capable of. You lied, manipulated and controlled everything my girls done… You wanted my girls,’ Cooke had written to Lambert.
‘When you figured out I was on to you, you snapped. You tormented my family for a long time with no punishment.’
The eye: Kellie Cooke [right], looks at Lambert [left] as she appeared in Pickaway County Common Pleas Court, Wednesday
Lambert, who only recently gave birth to a girl, was told to report to the county jail at 8am on July 30 while she deals with another legal matter.
Physiologist Jolie Brams previously told the jury that Lambert was ‘developmentally challenged’ and said she had drink and drug problems.
She also suffers from eating disorders and has issues with her body image, leading to her more than two dozen cosmetic surgeries.
Brams said that on one occasion, Lambert was told her sweater did not fit so she immediately went to her plastic surgeon for an operation.
Lambert’s defense attorney James Kingsley said at an earlier hearing: ‘Tara Lambert doesn’t know what’s appropriate for a situation. She’s childlike. Life’s a fantasy to her.’
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