Long Island man convicted in a $100 million mortgage-fraud scam has been charged with trying to orchestrate a murder-for-hire plot targeting a former associate who testified against him

 Long Island man convicted in a $100 million mortgage-fraud scam has been charged with trying to orchestrate a murder-for-hire plot targeting a former associate who testified against him, people briefed on the investigation said.

Aaron Hand, the 39-year-old former president of AFG Financial Group, allegedly told an undercover law-enforcement agent posing as a hit man that he didn't want the "rat" to get away with helping send him to prison, according to people briefed on the investigation.

Mr. Hand, speaking to the agent in a visiting room at the maximum-security Coxsackie Correctional Facility in upstate New York, allegedly offered to pay $2,000 for the witness to be killed and said he regretted he couldn't be present.

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Associated Press

Aaron Hand in July 2009.

Mr. Hand allegedly told the agent in a conversation that was taped at the prison that he wished he could be present when the witness was killed to "watch him suffer," according to a person briefed on the matter.

An indictment against Mr. Hand is scheduled to be announced Thursday by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr., whose office conducted the investigation. Mr. Hand is expected to be brought into court to be arraigned on charges of attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, carrying a maximum potential sentence of 25 years to life, the people said.

Mr. Hand was at Rikers Island on Wednesday and couldn't be reached for comment. A lawyer who represented him at his trial in the mortgage-fraud case said he was unaware of the new charges and declined to comment.

Mr. Hand, who lived on Long Island and whose company was based in Garden City, was convicted in July 2010 of multiple charges in connection with a scheme to defraud mortgage lenders by staging sham real-estate closings with straw buyers, crooked lawyers and phony appraisals. At least 27 people were convicted or pleaded guilty to participating in the scheme, prosecutors have said.

Although it is unusual for white-collar defendants to be accused of violent crime, it isn't unprecedented.

In 2000, Stuart Winkler, a former executive at A.S. Goldmen & Co. facing charges in a boiler-room case, was accused of contacting a hit man from jail. Mr. Winkler wanted to kill New York State Supreme Court Justice Leslie Crocker Snyder, who was overseeing his case, prosecutors said at the time. He was convicted in the white-collar case and of conspiracy to commit murder, and is still in prison.

The new investigation of Mr. Hand began in August, after Mr. Vance's office received a tip that he had expressed interest in arranging a hit on a former associate to whom he was close, one of several who cooperated with prosecutors and testified at his trial, according to people briefed in the investigation.

An investigator for the district attorney's office traveled to the Coxsackie prison on Aug. 26 as a purported assassin, wearing a recording device as he met with Mr. Hand, the people briefed on the investigation said. Mr. Hand allegedly complained about the relatively minor criminal charges faced by his associate, who didn't serve any jail time, and said he wanted him killed.

He allegedly gave the investigator the target's address, instructing him not to leave any DNA behind and to dispose of the body. Mr. Hand also allegedly told him to kill the witness's wife and children if they were home and to take whatever he found inside as compensation, the people said. Before he left, Mr. Hand allegedly agreed to pay the supposed hit man $500 as a down payment and to buy a gun.

Over the next few weeks, according to the people briefed on the investigation, Mr. Hand allegedly arranged for a payment, ultimately in the amount of $150, telling people outside the prison that he needed to bribe a guard so he wouldn't be locked up in a more restrictive setting. A contact of Mr. Hand delivered the money to the undercover officer on Sept 10 at a diner on the East Side of Manhattan, the people briefed on the investigation said.

On Sept. 15, the investigator went back to the prison to see Mr. Hand again. Mr. Hand allegedly said he wanted to go ahead with the killing, but had decided it would be better to wait until the witness left his home and drove to Brooklyn. He allegedly told the undercover officer to make it look like a gang killing and said he would get him $2,000 sometime later as payment, according to the people briefed on the investigation.