Ryan Hadeed has been charged in the Unit­ed States for al­leged­ly at­tempt­ing to arrange the con­tract killing of his ex-girl­friend’s fi­ancee.

He will be ar­raigned on Jan­u­ary 7 and has been charged with us­ing in­ter­state com­merce fa­cil­i­ties in the com­mis­sion of a mur­der for hire.

A re­lease from the US At­tor­ney’s Of­fice in the South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da, stat­ed that Hadeed first made con­tact with the own­er of a gun store at Coral Springs on Sep­tem­ber 29.

He al­leged­ly wrote a let­ter and post­ed it us­ing the US Postal Ser­vice.

It read, “I need some­one elim­i­nat­ed. I’ve been told you can arrange that. $10,000. All in cash and up front. Per­son lo­cat­ed in Tam­pa. You can be there and back in a day. You get their pho­to, first name, work ad­dress and home ad­dress.”

The crim­i­nal com­plaint filed by fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors re­veals four let­ters were writ­ten and post­ed be­tween Sep­tem­ber and No­vem­ber. The let­ters car­ried a re­turn ad­dress in Hialeah with the name “Alan Smithee,” a com­mon pseu­do­nym used by writ­ers and Hol­ly­wood di­rec­tors when they don’t want their name on a project, the Mi­a­mi Her­ald re­port­ed.

In his let­ter, Hadeed al­leged­ly asked the gun store own­er to sig­nal his ac­cep­tance of the con­tract hit by buy­ing a cup of cof­fee at a Coral Springs cof­fee shop, then putting a blank piece of white pa­per in the win­dow of his gun store, the com­plaint said.

The last let­ter dat­ed No­vem­ber 8 read, “Will know when the sub­ject is tak­en out. Need to be done be­fore the end of 2021.” 

The gun store own­er, who lives in Coral Springs, has no crim­i­nal record, ac­cord­ing to an ar­ti­cle in the Mi­a­mi Her­ald. How­ev­er, he had been help­ing out the Flori­da De­part­ment of Law En­force­ment. 

The man whom Hadeed al­leged­ly want­ed dead lived in Tam­pa and is the fi­ancee of Ryan Hadeed’s ex-girl­friend, the com­plaint says. The Her­ald re­port­ed that even though Hadeed lived in Pem­broke Pines and the gun store own­er lived in Coral Springs, Hadeed has been charged in Fort Laud­erdale fed­er­al court be­cause he al­leged­ly used the US Postal Ser­vice to arrange the hit. 

The com­plaint al­so said Hadeed had bought a firearm in 2018 from the gun own­er’s store.

The state­ment from the US At­tor­ney’s Of­fice in the South­ern Dis­trict of Flori­da said, “It is al­leged that Hadeed left the coun­try on a one-way tick­et the same day the hit­man re­ceived the cash and pic­tures of the in­tend­ed vic­tim. Law en­force­ment of­fi­cers learned of the plan. Dur­ing a sec­ondary cus­toms in­spec­tion of Hadeed when he re­turned from his in­ter­na­tion­al trip, ad­di­tion­al ev­i­dence of the crime was un­cov­ered, ac­cord­ing to the af­fi­davit. Pur­suant to a court-is­sued war­rant, law en­force­ment of­fi­cers ar­rest­ed Hadeed on De­cem­ber 22.”

If con­vict­ed, Hadeed faces up to 10 years in fed­er­al prison and a $250,000 fine.

A pre­tri­al de­ten­tion hear­ing for Hadeed is sched­uled for De­cem­ber 29, at 11 am in fed­er­al mag­is­trate court in Fort Laud­erdale.

The Her­ald re­port­ed that when law en­force­ment in­formed Hadeed’s ex-girl­friend and her fi­ancee about the plot, the fi­ancee said it re­mind­ed him of an un­signed let­ter he had re­ceived in 2020, as­sail­ing the fi­deli­ty and char­ac­ter of Hadeed’s ex-girl­friend. The ex-girl­friend told in­ves­ti­ga­tors “Hadeed was in­fat­u­at­ed with her to an un­healthy de­gree” and had threat­ened vi­o­lence when they were dat­ing, the Her­ald re­port­ed.

BOX: Ed­i­tor’s Note

Mr. Hadeed is a free­lancer con­trib­u­tor to Guardian Me­dia Lim­it­ed. The Com­pa­ny on­ly be­came aware of this mat­ter through re­ports pub­lished in the US me­dia. Mr. Hadeed has not been in touch with us and at­tempts to con­tact him thus far have proven fu­tile. His week­ly col­umn will be dis­con­tin­ued with im­me­di­ate ef­fect.