Teen Gets 20 Years in Murder-for-Hire Case

     (CN) – A Houston high school student was sentenced to 20 years in prison for hiring a man to kill a 15-year-old girl he thought was trying to keep him apart from his ex-girlfriend. Thomas Moses Ramirez agreed to pay an undercover police officer $150 and $15 worth of Xanax for the hit, Harris County prosecutors said.

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     Judge Ruben Guerrero sentenced Ramirez on Wednesday for solicitation of capital murder. Ramirez, a Sam Rayburn High School student, pleaded guilty but asked to be sentenced to probation. The undercover cop recorded the transaction in a Pasadena, Texas, park in which Ramirez asked him to stab the girl in the heart, according to press reports. Ramirez could have been sentenced to life in prison.