US Army sergeant arrested in alleged murder-for-hire plot against 4 people, including 2 minors: police

A U.S. Army sergeant and his brother have been charged in connection with a murder-for-hire scheme targeting four individuals, including two minors, officials said.

Trooper Jeremiah Peikert, 30, was arrested Thursday by Connecticut State Police on conspiracy charges with his brother, Joshua Peikert, 32, who was incarcerated at Corrigan Correctional Center in Uncasville at the time of the alleged scheme , according to court documents.

Both brothers were charged with conspiracy to commit murder and conspiracy to commit risk of injury to minors, according to court documents.

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The plot, in which Joshua allegedly solicited his unnamed cellmate to hire a hitman in 2022, targeted four people: a 29-year-old woman, a 23-year-old adult man, a 10-year-old girl, and a 10-year-old man. year. 1-year-old daughter, according to court documents.

Police discovered the adult woman was the mother of the two children and the adult man was her boyfriend, according to court documents.

According to court documents, the cellmate told Joshua he would find a hit man outside the prison to carry out the murders for a fee of $10,000 per person and asked for a “finder's fee.” of 500 dollars to do this.

According to court documents, the inmates agreed on two $250 payments, one before and one after the crime was committed, and Jeremiah provided the initial payment for his brother.

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Joshua allegedly wrote the targets' addresses, information about where they were sleeping and where to find a spare key on a note bearing the word “work” and his first and last name, documents show.

The alleged murder-for-hire plot was uncovered when Joshua's cellmate sent a handwritten letter to the 29-year-old woman detailing the alleged plot against her, documents show.

The woman contacted police in Groton, Connecticut, who reported starting investigating the case in October 2022.

The unnamed cellmate told authorities he never intended to hire a hitman for the job and just wanted to collect the brothers' money.

“At no time did I intend to hire a hit man or commit any violence,” the cellmate testified, according to documents.

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Investigators said they discovered that Jeremiah and Joshua discussed the alleged scheme under the guise of it being a “construction job” and that Jeremiah transferred the $250 finder's fee to the partner's account. cell.

In December 2023, Jeremiah allegedly admitted to Texas investigators that he made the payment and knew it was intended to harm the 29-year-old woman. However, he claimed he did not know the children were involved, documents show. .

“I didn’t think the kids were involved in this,” Jeremiah said, according to the documents.

Jeremiah failed to post $500,000 bail and was arraigned Friday in a New London, Connecticut, court.

No people were injured in the alleged scheme, according to the documents.

ABC News' Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.

US Army sergeant arrested in alleged murder-for-hire plot against 4 people, including 2 minors: Police was originally published on abcnews.go.com