SEMENTILLI TRIAL: Long ordeal nears end as defence rests
Monica, wife of Fabio, has pleaded not guilty
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For eight years, the family of Fabio Sementilli has sweated and agonized as justice seemed beyond their grasp.
Now, after 38 days of testimony with 44 state and 13 defence witnesses, the defence has rested.
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The famed Toronto hairdresser, 49, was stabbed to death on the patio of his Woodland Hills, California home on Jan. 23, 2017. Cops initially believed his murder was a home invasion gone off the rails.
But soon, an alleged darker scenario began emerging.
Six months after Fabio Sementilli was murdered, his widow Monica, 52, and her secret boyfriend, former porn star and convicted sex offender Robert Baker, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder.
She is now on trial for murder and conspiracy, and has pleaded not guilty.
Detectives believe the motive for the Wella vice-president’s murder was love, sex and money in the form of his $2-million life insurance policy.
What emerged was a lurid narrative filled with kinky sex, swinging, and a woman having a full-blown mid-life crisis.
On the final day of testimony, Deborah Obad — a friend of the Sementillis — said in Los Angeles Superior Court that she was “suspicious” of Baker when he arrived at Fabio’s memorial in the Woodland Hills home.
Obad said Baker had a “dark energy.”
She said she was aware that Monica was having a torrid affair behind her husband’s back and pegged Baker as the secret lover. Obad told the jury she believed Baker was the man who could have been responsible for Fabio’s murder.
Obad testified that she even confronted Monica Sementilli in the fall of 2016, several months before the murder, expressing concern that she was having an affair. Monica denied any hormone-charged hijinks.
She said she told Fabio that he would be wise to “watch (Monica’s) gym friends.”
And Obad also took it upon herself to play “Nancy Drew,” as LAPD homicide detectives came to call her. Daily, she reached out to investigators with information she told them they should look into.
At the gym, she continued probing Monica’s affair and the people she associated with there. One of those was her racquetball coach, Robert Baker.
Baker earlier testified that Monica played no role in her husband’s murder and that he orchestrated the cold-blooded attack “because I wanted her. She had nothing to do with it.”
Baker is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole after pleading guilty in July 2023. He was the defence’s star witness.
A third man, Christopher Austin, was arrested in October. He pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in January and testified for the prosecution.
Prosecutors have argued that Monica Sementilli “was the mastermind” in the scheme to kill her husband.
Baker and Monica met at West Hills LA Fitness where he worked as a racquetball coach. The pair soon embarked on a torrid sexual affair under her husband’s nose.
They went to swingers’ parties and engaged in group sex with other men and women.
Following the murder, Baker admitted that Monica sent him raunchy nudes of herself with her wedding ring still on her finger.
Baker noted: “Everyone grieves differently.”
@HunterTOSun
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