The convicted killer of famed Toronto hairstylist Fabio Sementilli told a Los Angeles court his lover Monica Sementilli played no role in her husband’s murder.
It was all on the chivalrous Robert Baker, a convicted sex offender and former porn actor.
Baker, 62, is the star witness for Monica Sementilli’s defence team. She is on trial for murder with special circumstances and conspiracy in the shocking Jan. 23, 2017 stabbing of her husband. Monica has pleaded not guilty.
“I murdered him because I wanted her,” Baker told jurors. “She had nothing to do with it.”
Baker said he killed Fabio because he was sick of sneaking around and sharing his lover with the beloved Wella vice-president. Also at stake was Fabio’s $2-million insurance policy.
The killer is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole and her defence is pinning their hopes on his testimony.
But he was tripped up by Asstistant District Attorney Beth Silverman, who asked why he provided multiple scenarios of the murder.
“You have repeatedly changed your story to fit the evidence in this case, correct?” Silverman said, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Baker said he tried to cover the identity of one of the co-conspirators, Christopher Austin.
Prosecutors have argued that Monica Sementilli “was the mastermind” in the scheme to kill her hubby. They say the motive was love, sex and the fat insurance policy.
Baker and Monica met at West Hills LA Fitness where he worked as a racquetball coach. The pair soon embarked on a torrid sexual affair under her husband’s nose.
The pair went to swingers’ parties and engaged in group sex with other men and women.
Following the murder, he admitted that Monica sent him raunchy nudes of herself with her wedding ring still on her finger.
Baker noted: “Everyone grieves differently.”
Austin — an Oregon probation officer — earlier testified that he and Baker fled the crime scene in Fabio’s Porsche. That was a detail cops did not know. Austin pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years to life.
On the witness stand, he told jurors that the widow “wanted him (Fabio) dead.”
“He told me … she is gonna leave the door unlocked,” Austin said.
Baker testified he and Austin found Fabio on the patio sipping a glass of wine and enjoying a cigar. They stabbed him several times with an eight-inch hunting knife.
Fabio Sementilli’s daughter Isabella found her father mortally wounded and called 911.
Once he arrived home, Baker ditched everything connected to Monica to hide their relationship. For a short time, they cooled the torrid affair but hooked up at a suburban bar.
“I never told her we killed her husband,” he testified, adding the pair continued their relationship behind bars.
Deputies even seized a toothpaste tube that contained Baker’s semen.
But he testified that he was in control of the highly sexual relationship. In jail, she stripped down and performed a sex act that he could see from where he was caged. He added that Monica shaved his initials into her pubic hair.
She called Baker “master” and “maestro.”
Eventually, he said, his newly widowed playmate concluded that Baker murdered Fabio. He said: “She called me a f***ing murderer.”
The lothario came onto the LAPD’s radar about one month after the murder. Baker’s DNA was tied to forensic evidence at the crime scene.
After the pair were pulled over in her black Mustang, Monica was allegedly captured telling Baker: “Deny everything and don’t talk.”
The trial continues.
@HunterTOSun