The girlfriend of a dentist who murdrered his wife while on safari has been jailed for 17 years for encouraging the murder.
Lori Milliron was tried alongside Lawrence Rudolph in July 2022 where the jury found her guilty of being an accessory after the fact to murder, obstruction of justice and two counts of perjury based on her testimony before a grand jury, according to the Department of Justice.
On Friday, she was sentenced to 17 years in prison and fined $250,000, according to federal judge William J. Martinez’s sentencing order.
Martinez granted the federal prosecutors’ motion for a sentence longer than the standard for such an offence.
In their motion, federal prosecutors had argued “Even now, Milliron has expressed no remorse.”
“Lori Milliron encouraged Lawrence Rudolph to kill his wife for her. She told him to divorce Bianca Rudolph. When he said he couldn’t afford to do that, Milliron responded by helping Rudolph procure propofol – a lethal anesthetic drug that could be used as a poison – before he took the trip where he did what she had wanted: get rid of Bianca,” their motion read.
Million’s attorney, John Dill, told CNN that the defense plans to appeal both the sentence and the jury’s verdict.
“We believe the sentence is excessive and bears no reasonable relationship to the two counts of perjury before the grand jury that formed the basis of the charges of obstruction and accessory after the fact,” Dill said.
“The answers she gave before the grand jury were not false. (…) Ms. Milliron had no involvement in the death of Bianca Rudolph and she sympathizes with the family as victims of that tragedy.”
Rudolph is yet to be sentenced after he was found guilty of murdering his wife Bianca and of defrauding multiple life insurance companies.
The killing occurred in Africa but Milliron and Rudolph were tried in Denver, where the insurance companies are based.
Bianca Rudolph was killed in 2016 while she and Lawrence Rudolph were on a hunting trip in Zambia. She suffered a fatal shotgun blast in their hunting cabin at dawn as she was packing to return to Phoenix, federal prosecutors alleged in court documents.
Rudolph maintained his innocence and said he believes the gun fired accidentally.
“I did not kill my wife. I could not murder my wife. I would not murder my wife,” Rudolph told jurors when he took the stand in his own defense at his trial.
But federal prosecutors described it as a premeditated crime.
Prosecutors argued Rudolph killed his wife of 30 years for the insurance money and to be with his girlfriend, Milliron. Rudolph cashed in more than $4.8 million in life insurance payments after her death six years ago.
Zambian law enforcement ruled the shooting an accident but American investigators reopened the case after a friend of Bianca Rudolph contacted authorities and said she suspected foul play.
