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A 58-year-old Colonie man has been sentenced to more than seven years in federal prison for orchestrating an elaborate murder-for-hire scheme that involved plans to feed the victim to pigs.
Jeal Sutherland received an 87-month prison sentence on Tuesday after using his cell phone to arrange the murder of a man who shares a child with Sutherland's former romantic partner, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of New York.
The bizarre plot unfolded between November 2024 and January 2025. Court documents show Sutherland agreed to forgive a debt owed by the person he hired to carry out the killing. He also arranged to pay someone he believed was a hog farmer $1,450 for the use of a Pennsylvania farm to dispose of the victim's body by having pigs consume it. The farmer was actually an undercover FBI agent.
In a particularly disturbing twist, prosecutors say Sutherland directed another individual to place the carcass of a Canada goose on the doorstep of the intended victim's mother in late January 2025. A threatening note was stuffed in the dead bird's beak.
The FBI arrested Sutherland on January 27, 2025, and he has remained in custody since. Fortunately, the intended victim was never harmed.
U.S. District Judge Mae A. D'Agostino also imposed a $15,000 fine and ordered three years of supervised release following Sutherland's prison term. The case was investigated by the FBI's Capital District Safe Streets Gang Task Force with assistance from the Colonie Police Department.