Bank manager plots her brother-in-law’s killing for ‘low price,’ feds say. ‘Heartless’

When a New York bank manager wanted her brother-in-law dead, she tried hiring his longtime friend for the job and then planned to hire a hitman for $10,000, according to court documents.

The friend, who belonged to a foreign police force, went undercover to build evidence against Reshma Massarone while she kept urging for her brother-in-law to be killed, federal prosecutors said. The friend helped reveal her plot, leading to her eventual guilty plea, according to prosecutors.

Massarone “devised a chilling plan to have a member of her own family murdered for the low price of ten thousand dollars. Her plan was unthinkably heartless,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in an Aug. 28 news release announcing her sentencing.

Massarone, 40, of Pine Bush, was sentenced to nine years and six months in prison on a murder-for-hire charge on Aug. 27, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.

Her potential motive wasn’t specified by prosecutors. Massarone’s brother-in-law told authorities that he and Massarone were involved in ongoing civil litigation in New York, according to an affidavit written by a federal officer who investigated the case.

Criminal trial lawyer Matthew D. Myers, who represented Massarone, told McClatchy News on Aug. 29 that “this case is the consummate example of a person being pushed to the brink after years of suffering. Ms. Massarone’s actions were completely out of character.”

“Tragically, it is Ms. Massarone who will suffer even further,” Myers said. “Although we recognize the severity of the charges we believe enough mitigation was provided to the Court to receive a far less severe sentence.”

The evidence against Massarone included social media messages and phone calls she exchanged with her brother-in-law’s friend, in which she discussed the murder plot, and bank surveillance footage of her wiring a $2,500 down payment for her brother-in-law’s killing, according to prosecutors.

‘Let’s get it done’

In a July 2023 Facebook message, Massarone first contacted her brother-in-law’s friend about killing him, court documents say. She “plotted” with the friend for about a month — without knowing he was working undercover, according to prosecutors.

The friend was with her brother-in-law and the brother-in-law’s wife in Guyana, where he worked as a police officer and was providing security services for the couple at the brother-in-law’s request, the affidavit says.

Massarone told the friend, referred to as “Individual-1” in court documents, that because of his “preexisting friendship” with her brother-in-law, “Massarone believed that (her brother-in-law) and his wife would never expect that Individual-1 would murder him,” according to the affidavit.

The man told Massarone he wouldn’t kill him and offered that he knew someone else, a hitman, who would carry out the job, the affidavit says.

At the time, Massarone was a branch manager at the Mid-Hudson Valley Federal Credit Union in Woodstock, about a 105-mile drive north from New York City, according to her LinkedIn profile.

In Massarone’s messages to her brother-in-law’s friend, according to prosecutors, she “swore on her kids’ lives that (he) would get paid if he ‘(got) rid’ of the Victim for her.”

She eventually wired $2,500 to him, believing he would give the money to the hitman as a “down payment,” for her brother-in-law’s killing, prosecutors said.

Massarone was seen wiring the money at a Western Union kiosk inside of a Walgreens in Orange County in surveillance footage from July 21, the affidavit shows.

By July 24, 2023, her brother-in-law had reported to the U.S. Embassy in Guyana that his friend told him Massarone “placed a hit” on him, according to the affidavit.

Meanwhile, the friend continued to speak with Massarone about the murder plot and recorded their phone conversations, the affidavit says.

As Massarone kept planning, she became “impatient,” according to prosecutors.

She “urged Individual-1 to murder the Victim, suggesting that ‘rat poison can do a great job’” and warned him that she would find someone else, telling him: ““Either way, if I find somebody to do the job you’re going to get blame, so cut the (expletive) and let’s get it done,” prosecutors said.

Massarone was indicted in the case on Aug. 29, 2023, court records show.

Her prison sentence will be followed by three years of supervised release, according to prosecutors.

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