Killer-for-hire gets 25 years to life for machete attack on man

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A Santa Ana man who was hired as a hit man by a woman to attack her husband with a machete was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison.

Antonio Cinco Ortega, 26, had been convicted in November of fracturing the husband’s skull, severing some of his fingers and chopping off a chunk of his nose in the attack.

Ortega was found guilty of one felony count of attempted murder with premeditation and deliberation, one felony count of conspiracy to commit murder and one felony count of mayhem, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney’s office. Two others -- the woman, Mary Katheryn Sharpski, 50, and her paramour, Michael Calvin Shores II, 42 -- are both charged with one felony count of attempted murder, one felony count of conspiracy to commit murder and one felony count of mayhem, prosecutors said.

If convicted, each faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said that Sharpski was having an affair with Shores, a tenant in her family’s home for several months, while she was married to Frank Sharpski.

Prosecutors said Sharpski allegedly planned to murder her husband so that she could live with Shores and her three children.

Ortega, a good friend of Shores, met with the pair to discuss their plans, prosecutors said. Sharpski is accused of agreeing to pay Ortega to kill her husband and providing details of his daily itinerary. On the morning of March 3, 2009, prosecutors said, Ortega attacked Frank Sharpski in an alley outside his home with a machete.

Fountain Valley police arrived at the scene shortly before 6 a.m., where they found Frank Sharpski on the ground, bleeding severely and semi-conscious. He was taken to a local hospital, and prosecutors said that after several surgeries he ‘narrowly survived.’

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-- Rick Rojas