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A California biotech tycoon has been discovered responsible of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot to kill a father of six and former enterprise accomplice after their oil deal collapsed.
Serhat Gumrukcu, 42, of Los Angeles, faces a compulsory life sentence for the 2018 abduction and killing of Gregory Davis, who was taken from his Vermont residence and located shot lifeless on the base of a snowbank, in keeping with the US Lawyer’s Workplace.
Gumrukcu, the founding father of Enochian Biosciences, was discovered responsible of hatching the lethal plot after Davis — a father of six whose spouse was pregnant with their seventh baby — threatened to sue him over a soured oil deal.
Prosecutors mentioned the biotech tycoon recruited his good friend, Berk Eratay, 38, who then used a second middleman, Aron Ethridge, 45, to rent hitman Jerry Banks, 37.
On Jan. 6, 2018, Banks, 37, arrived at Davis’ residence in a car fitted with flashing purple and blue lights, posing as a Deputy US Marshal and telling the unsuspecting father of six he wanted to come back in for questioning.
Banks then kidnapped Davis from his Danville residence and murdered him, prosecutors mentioned.
Davis’s physique was found in a snowbank a brief distance from his residence in Barnet, Vermont, on Jan. 7, 2018.
Following his homicide, “investigators rapidly found emails and messaging indicating the strain between Gumrukcu and Davis over the failed oil deal, leading to Gumrukcu being interviewed twice by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” prosecutors mentioned.
Investigators later found Gumrukcu had lied in every interview, however cellphone knowledge, buy data, financial institution paperwork, emails, and messages finally uncovered him and his co-conspirators’ roles in Davis’ kidnapping and homicide, in keeping with the US Lawyer’s Workplace.
Round 2017, Gumrukcu was brokering a multimillion-dollar biotech merger with Enochian Biosciences constructed round his purported HIV remedy — a high-stakes deal that prosecutors mentioned made silencing Davis all of the extra pressing.
Prosecutors mentioned Davis’s risk to take authorized motion over their failed oil transaction might have jeopardized Gumrukcu’s bid to realize management of Enochian Biosciences.
Gumrukcu’s downfall got here in Could 2022, when he was arrested and brought into custody. He was convicted in April of murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and wire fraud.
“Serhat Gumrukcu tried to cover his position within the homicide of Greg Davis by paying one man to pay one other man to pay the hitman, who shot and killed Greg Davis on a January evening in Vermont,” said Performing United States Lawyer Michael P. Drescher.
“Uncovering Gumrukcu’s duty for this homicide concerned years of decided investigation by the women and men of Vermont’s United States Lawyer’s Workplace, working carefully with the FBI and the Vermont State Police.”
Banks and Ethridge have been arrested in April 2022. Eratay was arrested in Could.
Banks was sentenced to 200 months in jail, adopted by 5 years of supervised launch, and Eratay acquired a sentence of 110 months in jail, adopted by three years of supervised launch.
Ethridge was sentenced to 140 months in jail adopted by 5 years of supervised launch.
Final month, Davis’s widow, Melissa, slammed Gumrukcu in courtroom for shattering the lives of her and her seven youngsters by killing her husband, Vtdigger reported.
“I stand right here at the moment not solely as a widow, however because the mom of seven youngsters whose lives have been shattered the evening Gregg was taken from us,” she instructed Gumrukcu throughout a Sept. 25 courtroom look.
“You thought you possibly can silence my husband, however your lies die right here on this courtroom.”
Throughout that very same courtroom look, Gumrukcu had his sentencing pushed to November.
He’s staring down a compulsory life sentence.
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