U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Connecticut issued the following announcement on Jan. 9.
John H. Durham, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that JAMES ERIK GODIKSEN, 57, formerly of Clinton, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Vanessa L. Bryant in Hartford to 120 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for hiring an individual to murder Godiksen’s former spouse. Judge Bryant also ordered Godiksen to pay a $10,000 fine.
According to the evidence presented during a trial in this matter, while he was incarcerated at New Haven Correctional Center in 2016, Godiksen reached out to other inmates seeking a person who would be willing to kill Godiksen’s former wife. Between September 10 and September 14, 2016, Godiksen and an ATF special agent acting in an undercover capacity spoke multiple times by phone. During these conversations, Godiksen offered to pay the undercover agent $5,000 to murder his “ex-wife,” and provided the agent with a physical description of his former wife, her phone number, her home address, her place of work and the route she typically drove to work. He also told the undercover agent how he would like his former wife to be murdered. Godiksen stated to the undercover agent “I want her killed, if that’s possible . . . . Head cut off would be nice.”
Godiksen also offered the undercover agent additional money if he encountered his former wife’s current boyfriend and killed him, too.
Godiksen was arrested on September 14, 2016, after he met with the undercover agent and provided him with a “down payment” of $80, some of which was to be used to purchase a knife. Godiksen has been detained since his arrest.
On July 20, 2018, a jury found Godiksen guilty of one count of murder for hire.
This matter was investigated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, Clinton Police Department and Connecticut Department of Correction. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Rahul Kale and Dave Vatti.
Original source can be found here.
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