Second person charged in Centre County after failed plot to kill police informant
A man was charged Wednesday after state police at Rockview said troopers uncovered his failed plot to kill a police informant with a lethal dose of fentanyl.
Mark C. Hackett, 63, of Clearfield County, was the second person to be accused of planning to deliver a deadly dose of fentanyl to a confidential informant who purchased drugs from him on behalf of law enforcement.
His girlfriend Amanda Zortman, 45, of Clearfield County, was arrested Monday. Both are charged with felony counts of solicitation and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, as well as criminal use of a communication facility.
They spent months communicating with a man incarcerated at the Centre County Correctional Facility to plot the killing, police wrote in an affidavit of probable cause.
The inmate told troopers Hackett was looking to hire a hit man and offered him upward of $10,000 to carry out the killing. Zortman was supposed to drive him to Huntingdon, where they would give the informant a lethal dose of fentanyl, police wrote.
The opioid painkiller is many times more powerful than heroin and frequently appears as an illegal street drug mixed with other substances.
Between October and mid-February, troopers said they listened to recorded jailhouse calls and read messages in which Hackett and Zortman took steps to carry out the plot. Those repeated communications, police wrote, represented “substantial steps” to facilitate the killing of the informant.
After her arrest, troopers said Zortman told them she did not know “what exactly the plan was because he didn’t really tell me too much of it.”
“I didn’t know,” Zortman said, according to police. “I have no idea anything about killing anybody in Huntingdon.”
No defense lawyer was listed for Zortman. Defense lawyer Ron McGlaughlin, who was appointed to represent Hackett in his drug case, said Wednesday he has not been appointed to defend Hackett against his latest charges.
His preliminary arraignment was not scheduled as of Wednesday afternoon, though his preliminary hearing is scheduled for March 12. He is incarcerated at the Centre County Correctional Facility.