Auto shop owner sentenced in murder-for-hire plot

CAMDEN, N.J. (AP) -- A Philadelphia auto shop owner convicted of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot that led to the shooting of his daughter's boyfriend in Atlantic City was sentenced Monday to nearly 23 years in prison.

Ronald Galati will also have to pay $15,427 in restitution and serve five years of supervised release once he's freed from prison.

The 64-year-old Galati was found guilty last September of conspiracy to commit murder for hire; conspiracy to possess and use a firearm during a crime of violence; murder for hire, and aiding and abetting the possession and use of a firearm during a crime of violence.

Galati and Jerome Johnson, 46, another Philadelphia man who sometimes worked for him, hired two men to commit the November 2013 shooting, prosecutors said. The victim was shot multiple times and underwent emergency surgery before being hospitalized for six days.

Johnson and the two men who committed the shooting -- Ronald Walker, 49, of Philadelphia, and Alvin Matthews, 47, of Brookhaven, Pennsylvania -- have each pleaded guilty to related offenses and await sentencing.

Galati promised to pay Walker $20,000 to shoot and kill the victim, prosecutors said, adding that Galati had repeatedly expressed his desire to have the man killed. They also say Galati had threatened to kill the man himself.
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