Mortgage scammer plotted from prison to kill 'rat'

Aaron Hand is walked into court today.

The convicted mastermind of a $100 million mortgage fraud scheme has been charged with plotting the murder of a "rat" who'd testified against him.

He's a p---y, a total f---ing p---y," Aaron Hand was taped at Coxsackie Correctional Facility saying of the witness who put him in prison for 8 1/3 to 25 years, according to prosecutors.

"I wish I was there to see his f---ing face," prosecutors say he told an undercop who was posing as a hitman. "Watch him f---ing suffer."

If the witness' wife and two young children happened to be home? They might have to be killed as well, Hand mused on wiretaps.

I think if you leave anybody, you might have a -- you might have a problem," Hand allegedly told the undercover, who was visiting him in prison -- and wearing a wire.

Prosecutor Peirce Moser said Hand was taped on prison phones tricking his family members into delivering a $150 downpayment on the hit. The family members believed Hand needed the cash to bribe a correction officer, so that Hand wouldn't be confined in a restricted area of the prison.

Hand and three co-defendants had been convicted last summer of enterprise corruption, conspiracy, grand larceny and other charges for a mortgage fraud scheme conducted through their loan company, AFG Financial Group.

More than 20 other co-defendents had pleaded guility in the case, and the targeted witness, who authorities would not name, was among the several who had cooperated against the defendants at trial.

Hand hadn't even been sentenced yet when Hand began his plot, prosecutors said.

The case itself was filled with rats," Hand was taped telling the undercover who visited him, according to prosecutors.

Big time. One, one got me pretty f---ing good," he allegedly said of the would-be victim.

You don't get a free pass in life when you put away 30 f---ing people," Hand was allegedly taped griping. "C'mon. And you walk? You don't get charged with RICO? You're out of your f---ing mind."

No body, no crime, Hand allegedly instructed the "hitman."

You leave a body, you've got a crime," he was taped advising.

And in a chilling contract murder fantasy, Hand allegedly gave the undercover a blow-by-blow of how the would-be hit should unfold at the would-be victim's home.

Oh and, and my plan is -- yeah. I would put a car in front, in front of the road. One in the driveway, just to block off the car. One guy at the front stoop with two guys in the back, one guy in the car.

Rush the back and pop, and pop right through the back door. Boom. Lights are shattered...rush in, boom, boom, boom. Run upstairs, downstairs, get it -- just hit the road.

No samples. No DNA. Wear gloves. Wear something over your head. You no, no trace of nothing...

Prosecutors asked that he have absolutely no phone privileges, and be placed in lockdown.

Defense lawyer Kevin Canfield, complaining that Hand had been "entrapped," asked the judge to at least let him have phone calls with his wife and children.

This man was entrapped by the authorities," Canfield said. "He never wanted to hurt someone, to kill someone." Hand was "set up" by corrections officials and prosecutors, Canfield said.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Laura Ward ordered Hand be segregated from other prisoners, and permitted only phone calls to his wife and children.

But obviously, Mr. Hand, as if you did not already know...obviously anything you say is going to be intercepted and clearly listened to by the DA assigned to this case," the judge told him.

Hand faces an additional 25 years prison if convicted.