Balignasa receives 25 years in DuPont murder case

Kim Smith

Thursday, March 23, 2000 | 2:42 a.m.

The last of the four people charged in the DuPont murder case was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday.

Joseph Balignasa will have to serve at least 10 years of his second-degree murder sentence before being eligible for parole, Chief Deputy District Attorney William Koot said.

Balignasa was charged along with Christopher Moseley, Diana Hironaga and Ricardo Murillo in the August 1998 death of Patricia Margello, 45.

According to court testimony, Moseley hired the other three to kill Margello because he didn't approve of her relationship with his stepson and DuPont Chemical Corp. heir Dean MacGuigan. Hironaga confessed to luring Margello out on the night she died and then holding Margello's arms while Murillo strangled her with Balignasa's belt at the Del Mar Motel on Las Vegas Boulevard South.

The plot was uncovered when police figured out Hironaga rented the room where Margello's body was found stuffed inside an air conditioning vent and Hironaga implicated the others.

Hironaga said she and Murillo received $15,000 for the murder. Because she and Murillo plotted the murder with Moseley via fax and phone, they were charged in federal court. Balignasa was charged in state court.

Moseley, 59, was sentenced to 16 1/2 years in prison by U.S. District Judge Justin Quackenbush last week, and Hironaga, 41, received 15 1/2 years. Both of them entered plea agreements in order to avoid life sentences and testified against Murillo at his trial in November.

Murillo, too, was sentenced last week. He received two life terms.

Balignasa pleaded guilty shortly after Murillo was convicted.

Koot said that once parole is figured in, Balignasa will likely be released from prison before Moseley and Hironaga because he was less culpable for the murders.