Graziano attorney claims entrapment in murder-for-hire case

Ed Graziano, who is accused of trying to have his wife killed, was entrapped by the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office with the help of Graziano's own private investigator, according to Graziano's defense attorney, John Trevena.

And the private investigator, Jeff Wilson, should not have worked with sheriff's investigators because he was violating the confidentiality any private investigator is obligated to keep with his or her clients, Trevena says.

Trevena makes his arguments in two separate motions he filed in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court earlier this week. By virtue of the alleged entrapment and confidentiality breach, some of the evidence gathered during the sheriff's investigation - in particular, numerous conversations with Wilson that were taped - should be thrown out, Trevena argues.

A hearing is set for Feb. 5, but the Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney's Office is likely to ask for a continuance so it can prepare to argue the contentions Trevena makes in the 26 pages that make up the two motions.

Graziano was arrested in February of last year on a charge of solicitation to commit murder. He is accused of using the private investigator, Wilson, as a go-between so he could hire a third party to kill his wife, Debra. Wilson originally was hired by Graziano to follow Debra, but once Wilson got wind
Graziano was contemplating having her killed, Wilson went to the sheriff's office, and agreed to be taped during subsequent meetings with Graziano.

The Grazianos' son, John, suffered permanent brain damage as a result of a wreck in which Nick Bollea, the son of famed former wrestler Hulk Hogan, smashed a car into a palm tree in Clearwater.

John Graziano was the sole passenger in Nick Bollea's car. The Graziano family is now suing Hulk Hogan, whose real name is Terry Bollea, as well as Nick Bollea, and Edward Graziano stood to get a bigger share of any out-of-court settlement or jury award if his wife were dead.

Trevena, in his motions, said Graziano had doubts about the alleged hit, but that Wilson worked on him for a long time, until Graziano made the final decision to pay $2,100 to have Debra killed.

Hundreds of pages of court documents show Graziano sometimes had second thoughts.

But Assistant State Attorney Scott Rosenwasser, who is prosecuting Graziano, said Graziano was not entrapped. In order for someone to be entrapped, the prosecutor said, it has to be shown that a defendant does not have a mental predisposition to commit a crime.

In his first taped conversation with Wilson, Graziano asks him if he is wired, which shows a predisposition to do something illegal, Rosenwasser said. He noted that Trevena did not include with his motions any mention of that initial conversation, or a transcript from that conversation.

In that same initial conversation, Wilson asks Graziano if he is serious about killing his wife, to which Graziano replies, "More so than ever," Rosenwasser said. Wilson over the months also keeps telling Graziano that the decision to kill Debra is Graziano's to make, Rosenwasser said.

The prosecutor also said there is no protected confidentiality between a private investigator and a client, as there is between a doctor and a patient or a lawyer and a client. So any conversation between Wilson and Graziano - whether it touched on following Debra or killing her - is not privileged, Rosenwasser said.