Hearing in Du Pont case is canceled

Kim Smith

Tuesday, Oct. 5, 1999 | 9:57 a.m.

The much anticipated guilty plea of a Du Pont family member on murder conspiracy charges failed to materialize Monday.

Christopher Moseley, 58, was scheduled to plead guilty in connection with the death of his stepson's girlfriend Monday, but the hearing was canceled at the last minute.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Tom O'Connell declined to comment on plea negotiations, but he noted that a calendar hearing on the case remains scheduled for Wednesday.

Moseley's defense attorney, John Fadgen, did not return phone calls seeking comment.

Moseley is accused of hiring Diana Hironaga, 40, Ricardo Murillo, 37, and Joseph Balignasa to kill Patricia Margello, 45, in July 1998.

According to court documents, Moseley did not approve of Margello, a drug-user and part-time prostitute who was dating his stepson, Dean MacGuigan.

MacGuigan is the son of Lisa Dean Moseley, a direct descendant of the founder of the DuPont Co.

Margello's body was found stuffed inside the air-conditioning vent of a seedy downtown motel, and an autopsy revealed she had been strangled. She had been tied up with coaxial cable and panty hose and wrapped up in bed linens and trash bags before being stuffed into the vent.

Hironaga confessed to her part in the slaying and implicated her co-defendants when officers figured out she had rented the motel room. She is scheduled to be sentenced Dec. 10. She faces life in prison.

According to Hironaga's plea agreement, she and Murillo, her former boyfriend, received $15,000 from Moseley's limousine driver after flying to Philadelphia a couple of days after the murder.

That trip led to a federal indictment on a charge of conspiracy to travel in interstate commerce and use of interstate commerce facilities with the intent to commit murder-for-hire.

Balignasa was charged in state court, but his murder trial ended in a mistrial in May because of juror misconduct. His new trial is set for Jan. 10.

Unless plea negotiations are successful, both Moseley and Murillo are set for trial Oct. 18 before U.S. District Judge Philip Pro.