Kentucky doctor sentenced in plot to hire hit man to kill her ex-husband

A Kentucky doctor who tried to hire a hit man to kill her ex-husband during a custody battle over their children has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison.

A judge also ordered Stephanie Russell to pay a $10,000 fine , according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Russell, 53, is a Louisville pediatrician. Her practice was called KidzLife Pediatrics.

According to court records, Russell and her ex-husband were fighting in court for custody of their two young children when she began asking employees in her office in 2021 if they knew anyone she could get to kill him.

She allegedly told one of her employees she wanted her ex-husband dead so she could get sole custody, according to an affidavit from Mariola Hernandez, an FBI special agent.

One of the employees Russell approached told a private investigator about the solicitation, and the investigator advised the employee to contact the FBI, according to the affidavit.

Conversations with an undercover FBI agent

The FBI ultimately had one of the people Russell had approached provide her with the telephone number of a purported hit man from the Chicago area, who was actually an undercover FBI agent.

In recorded calls, Russell said she wanted her ex-husband “completely gone from my life” and wanted the death to look like a suicide to divert attention from herself because she had been outspoken about hating him , according to the court record.

The court record contains the following transcript from one conversation:

Russell: “I mean, do you like, do they disappear? Do you like shoot them on the road? Like what happens? Or should I just not know?”

Hit man: “It really depends on, I mean, price dictates. That’s just how that goes. The more work I got to do, the more it’s going to cost you, but it could be, do you want it to look like a suicide? Do you want it to . . .”

Russell: “Yes, that would be amazing.”

Russell agreed to pay the hit man $7,000 and said he could have $10,000 from her ex-husband’s house.

Russell put the first payment of $3,500 in a specimen collection box outside her office on May 18, 2022, for the undercover agent to pick up.

The FBI arrested her the next day.

The doctor’s mental health and sentencing

Russell ultimately pleaded guilty to one charge of causing a person to travel across state lines in the murder-for-hire plot, and one charge of aiding and abetting interstate stalking.

Russell’s defense attorneys said supporters described her as an empathetic person and skilled doctor who showed “unbounded commitment to patients,” providing money for the father of one patient to buy Christmas presents after he lost his job.

However, Russell was mentally ill — unhinged by the stress of the custody battle — when she tried to hire a killer, her attorneys said in a sentencing memorandum.

In the opinion of one doctor who evaluated her, as Russell came “under increasing intensities of stress and distress related to a very contentious custody battle,” she became “profoundly delusional and obsessively fixated” with her thoughts and behavior becoming “rageful, distorted from reality, delusional and psychotic,” the memo said.

The 12-year sentence was the maximum negotiated as part of Russell’s guilty plea.

U.S. District Judge David J. Hale sentenced Russell Wednesday.