Dillon Scott Dees (Comal County Sheriff’s Office)
A 33-year-old man’s alleged attempt to hire a hitman for $27,000 in Bitcoin to kill his former father-in-law — a sheriff’s deputy — in a divorce and custody battle with his ex-wife was foiled when the person he tried to get help from turned out to be a confidential informant working for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Dillon Scott Dees allegedly tried to find someone to kill a Comal County sheriff’s deputy, authorities said. He faces charges of interstate commerce in the commission of murder for hire.
An email to Dees’ defense attorney seeking comment was not immediately returned.
An FBI agent spelled out how it all allegedly went down in a federal affidavit.
It allegedly began on June 26 when a confidential source (CS) was approached by a man known as “Dillon,” later identified as Dees, at a Bexar County, Texas job site. Dees asked if the CS could find someone who would carry out a murder, the affidavit alleges.
“Dees told the CS that his ex-wife was trying to move to Ohio with their daughter and that his former father-in-law was a problem for him,” the document said.
Dees said his former father-in-law is a local police officer and had tried to involve local law enforcement in child custody issues with his ex-wife, but nothing was done, the document said. The suspect believed it was because he was an officer, the affidavit said.
After talking with the suspect, the informant said he’d try to find a hitman and then contacted the DEA. The DEA confirmed the suspect and his wife had been involved in a court divorce and child custody case and that the intended target of the hit was a local law enforcement officer.
In a recorded call on June 26, the informant asked Dees if he was serious about doing the “s—” they discussed earlier, to which Dees responded, “yeah.”
“CS told Dees he has a guy in the valley and can give him the phone number,” the affidavit said. “Dees asked to talk in person and think about it overnight.”
In a meeting recorded on video and audio the next day in the informant’s vehicle, the two discussed the murder, the affidavit said.
“Dees stated he would pay the ‘hitman’ the equivalent of $27,000 in Bitcoin,” the document states. “Dees told CS that using Bitcoin would make the payment untraceable.”
Dees asked that the murder not take place around his daughter and asked if the murder could occur in Ohio as Dees recently got off probation, and he felt as though “all eyes [are] on me,” the document said. Dees told the informant he did not want to meet the “hitman” and only wanted to deal with the informant.
They again allegedly discussed why Dees wanted the intended victim killed.
He allegedly told the informant the man was the reason his ex-wife wanted to move to Ohio, and he accused his ex-wife of being the reason he was convicted of a theft charge, for which he was on probation, the affidavit said. The informant told Dees the “hitman” would require partial payment before the murder, and Dees allegedly agreed. He also allegedly offered to pay off the informant’s vehicle as compensation for setting him up with the “hitman.”
Dees allegedly told the informant that if a custody hearing earlier this month went in his favor, he didn’t want the murder to occur, the affidavit says. Conversely, the document added, he allegedly said if the hearing didn’t go in his favor, he wanted the murder to take place. The informant told Dees what he allegedly had been talking about was a capital offense, which Dees acknowledged, the affidavit said.
Dees was arrested on July 6. This week in court, a federal judge ordered that he be held without bond, citing a pending theft case involving stolen buckles from the Atascosa County Livestock Show Association worth $3,800 for keeping him jailed, the San Antonio Express-News reported.
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