An influencer has been jailed for 10 years after offering a hitman $60,000 to kill three people, including a social media rival and her boyfriend.
Texas-based content creator Ashley Grayson, 35, ran a successful Internet business from her home in Dallas and was a self-described best-seller, course creator and philanthropist, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Tennessee.
Grayson, who also claimed to be an eight-figure business coach, had contacted a potential hitman in 2022, who was in fact a friend who had offered to fly them to Dallas with her husband and simply told them it was a “business chance’.
This proposal would turn out to be the social media star asking her friend and her husband to kill three people for $20,000 per hit, Fox 4 News reported.
The three people on Grayson’s murder list were her ex, a rival who ran a similar company to her in Mississippi, and a Texas woman who had posted negative social media posts about her online, prosecutors said.
“This was a 21st century crime, bringing online feuds and senseless rivalries into the real world,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Reagan Fondren.
“The defendant tried to hire someone to kill a woman because of things that happened exclusively on the Internet.
‘Thankfully no one was physically injured in this case, but the victim and her family still felt a serious and emotional impact as a result of the suspect’s actions.
Ashley Grayson, an influencer from Texas, was jailed for 10 years after hiring a hitman, who turned out to be her boyfriend, to kill three people for $60,000.
The content creator and business owner wanted to kill her ex-boyfriend, a business rival, and a woman who made negative comments about her online
Grayson, 35, is not eligible for parole because the case was a federal case
Grayson was sentenced to 120 months in prison, the maximum allowable sentence for her crime, and three years of supervised release
“The proactive response of the investigative services and our prosecutors has prevented an even more serious crime from taking place.”
The Memphis couple pretended to go along with the plan, but instead handed police a video of Grayson saying she would pay them an extra $5,000 to kill the Mississippi woman within a week.
The couple later sent Grayson a clip of police lights from another related incident, claiming they had tried to carry out the murder but had been caught.
They later met with the content creator and were paid $10,000 for their “attempt,” the prosecutor added.
In July 2023, a grand jury in Tennessee indicted Grayson and her husband for using an interstate facility to commit murder.
The case went to trial in March this year, where a jury found Grayson guilty but acquitted her husband Joshua.
Last month, Grayson was sentenced to 120 months in prison, the maximum allowable sentence for her crime, and three years of supervised release.
The business owner, with more than 1,500 followers on social media, is not eligible for parole because it was a federal case.
Special Agent in Charge Joe Carrico of the FBI Nashville Field Office, Memphis Resident Agency, said, “This murder-for-hire plot underscores the power of joint federal law enforcement efforts to ensure the safety of citizens in our community.
“This sentence demonstrates the commitment of the FBI and our partners to investigate violent crimes and root out those who attempt to prey on the public.”