Killer gets maximum sentence in murder-for-hire plot

The man convicted of the 2008 murder of his wife in a Lincolnshire parking lot was sentenced Thursday to the maximum 40 years in prison for trying to hire someone to kill the witnesses against him.

That term will have to be served on top of the 55 years Clarence Weber, 61, already earned for the murder of his wife, Adelina Weber.

Clarence Weber, formerly of Waukegan, was in the Lake County jail awaiting trial for the July 5, 2008 fatal stabbing of his wife in a hotel parking lot when he asked a fellow inmate to kill a pair of witnesses.

The inmate, Jermaine Daniels, told police about the October 2008 request and was fitted with a concealed microphone when he recorded Weber attempting to arrange the deaths of Yugi Tamura of Long Grove and Martha Bautista of Mundelein.

Tamura had seen Weber arguing with his wife just moments before she was stabbed. Bautista, a co-worker of Adelina Weber’s, testified Clarence Weber left his estranged wife a note asking that they meet outside the hotel.

During the recorded conversation, Weber is heard saying he wants Tamura and Bautista to “disappear” and to “go on vacation” so they would not be available to testify against him.

Associate Judge Theodore Potkonjak found Weber guilty of solicitation of murder for hire after a four-hour trial in August.

Assistant State’s Attorney Eric Kalata cited Weber’s lifelong history of violence, which includes a 17-year sentence in Florida for trying to kill his first wife, in asking for the maximum sentence.

“The defendant wreaks havoc and causes pain, injury and death to those in his life,” Kalata said. “This defendant has demonstrated repeatedly that he will do what he wants to whom he wants.”

Assistant Public Defender Katherine Hatch asked for the minimum sentence of 20 years, saying Weber’s poor health and advanced age already assured “He will never leave the Department of Corrections alive.”

As she did at the trial, Hatch attacked Daniels as an often-convicted felon who preys on fellow inmates to earn lighter sentences for himself.

“The defendant was approached by a well-known jailhouse snitch who provoked Mr. Weber,” Hatch said. “No money ever changed hands, the risk of actual harm was minimal.”

As he did at his sentencing hearing for the murder conviction, Weber declined to make a statement on his own behalf Thursday.

But Potkonjak said what Weber intended to do was more significant than what he actually was able to accomplish.

“In his mind, he was threatening actual harm to another person,” Potkonjak said. “He did not know that the other person was wired and the police were listening.”