-Caveat Lector- Killing Embroils du Pont Heirs By ROBERT MACY .c The Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) - It's stuff for the plot of the best pulp fiction. An heir of the du Pont fortune kindles an affair with a former prostitute. They go to Las Vegas so he can divorce his estranged wife, who is draining his share of the family fortune. His frustrated stepfather seeks out a ``small, two-bit ex-porn star'' to murder the prostitute. The story goes downhill from there, ending with the prostitute's body stuffed in trash bags and hidden in an air conditioning duct in a seedy motel off the Vegas Strip. The past week, a federal jury in Las Vegas heard testimony in the trial of one of the men accused in the murder-for-hire scheme. Two others have already pleaded guilty to taking part in the contract killing and agreed to testify for the government. ``This case is all about death, deceit and deals,'' Arthur Allen, the assistant public defender, said in his opening statement at the trial of Ricardo Murillo, who faces federal conspiracy charges in the case. At the center of the trial is 42-year-old Dean MacGuigan, the great-great grandson of a founder of the DuPont Chemical Co. and whose mother is a du Pont heiress. His girlfriend, according to Allen, was ``a beautiful young woman who lived in south Philadelphia,'' but ``who grew up fast and got into drugs and prostitution.'' MacGuigan had moved to Las Vegas in 1998, in part to get residency and an easy divorce from his wife who had angered the family by draining his trust fund. The girlfriend, 45-year-old Patricia Margello, followed MacGuigan here. That relationship, too, was unpopular - so much so that his stepfather, Christopher Moseley, allegedly plotted ``Operation Dean,'' a six-week attempt to get rid of the girlfriend that gradually escalated from persuasion to murder. ``Christopher Moseley was protective of his wife, protective of the assets of the du Pont family,'' Allen told the court. Enter Diana Hironaga, a former porn actress and, by Allen's account, a ``street hustler.'' She met the stepfather playing video poker at a Vegas motel. He asked her to head up Operation Dean in July 1998, paying her an initial $5,000 to wean MacGuigan off drugs and the affair. Persuasion didn't work. The girlfriend refused to return to Philadelphia and MacGuigan resisted ending the affair. By the end of July, Hironaga said, the stepfather decided to ``take step five, to kill.'' Moseley testified Monday that he gave the kill order while in a drunken stupor, so inebriated that Hironaga had to use a wheelchair to get him to his airline gate to catch a flight back to Philadelphia. ``At no time was my wife involved in any of this,'' Moseley testified. A former groundskeeper at her estate, he married the du Pont heiress 10 years ago. Hironaga testified of plans to set a trap for Margello by luring the girlfriend to the Del Mar Motel in the predawn hours of Aug. 2. Hironaga told the other woman they would be paid $2,000 to escort two high-rolling gamblers. Hironaga said she rented Room 6 under her name for $10 an hour. The girlfriend quickly suspected trouble, according to testimony. She called MacGuigan at the Las Vegas Hilton, where they had been staying, and told him she was afraid. He suggested she take a cab back to the Hilton. MacGuigan said he heard nothing further until three days later: a news report that her body had been found at the motel. A belt was wrapped around her mouth and neck, and battery jumper cables secured her body in a fetal position. Hironaga gave this account on what happened before the body was found: When they arrived at the motel, Murillo, her 38-year-old former boyfriend, and another man, 26-year-old Joseph Balignasa, were waiting in the room. The four did methamphetamines, then Murillo and Balignasa began to choke the girlfriend. According to Hironaga, the two men then left her alone with the body while they went to buy trash bags. When they returned, she said, Murillo produced a saw to cut up the body. Hironaga told him not to, saying Margello had AIDS. They then put the body in the trash bags and hid it in the air conditioning duct, Hironaga said. Hironaga returned to her room - also at the Las Vegas Hilton - and phoned the stepfather's home. She said she left a message on his answering machine: ``Step five was finished; mission complete.'' Hironaga and Murillo then flew to Philadelphia, where the stepfather's limousine driver allegedly delivered $5,000 to Hironaga and $10,000 to Murillo. Hironaga, Murillo and Moseley were indicted in September 1998 in the girlfriend's death. Moseley was arrested on a golf course near Wilmington, Del., by FBI agents. Hironaga and Moseley have pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in Margello's death and have agreed to cooperate with authorities in hopes of receiving lighter sentences. Hironaga, 41, was scheduled to be sentenced in December. Moseley, 59, faces sentencing in February. Both Murillo and Balignasa maintain their innocence. Murillo's federal case was expected to go to the jury later this week. He faces life in prison. Balignasa went on trial earlier this year, but a mistrial was declared when jurors consulted a dictionary and a telephone book instead of relying solely on matters that were admitted into evidence. A second trial has been scheduled for January. 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