Murder-for-hire case: US court accepts guilty plea of Nikhil Gupta; sentencing on May 29
Washington: Nikhil Gupta now formally stands convicted in a US federal court after a Manhattan judge accepted his guilty plea in a murder-for-hire conspiracy targeting a Sikh separatist leader in New York — a case that carries a maximum exposure of 40 years in prison.
On February 17, US District Judge Victor Marrero issued an order accepting Gupta’s guilty plea after reviewing the transcript of his allocution before Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn.
Gupta, 54, had stood in court last week and admitted under oath that “in the spring of 2023, I agreed with another person to have another individual murder a person in the United States,” and that he “had delivered $15,000 in cash via cellular phone to another individual in the United States”.
During questioning, he acknowledged that he knew the intended victim was in New York — “In Queens especially” — and that the payment recipient was in Manhattan.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The government formally requested that Judge Marrero accept the plea in a filing submitted the same day.
With the district court’s order now entered, Gupta’s conviction is official, and the case moves squarely into the sentencing phase.
Under federal law, Gupta faces up to 10 years each for conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire and for murder-for-hire, and up to 20 years for conspiracy to commit money laundering, for a total statutory maximum of 40 years.
However, federal sentencing is guided by advisory Sentencing Guidelines rather than statutory maximums alone. In a Pimentel letter filed prior to the plea, prosecutors calculated Gupta’s advisory sentencing range at 235 to 293 months in prison.
During the plea hearing, the court made clear that the guidelines are advisory and that the final sentence will be determined solely by Judge Marrero after reviewing a Presentence Investigation Report.
Sentencing has been scheduled for May 29 at 10 a.m.
Gupta confirmed in court that he is a citizen of India and understood that his guilty plea would likely result in removal from the United States. The government’s sentencing submission states that removal is presumptively mandatory for non-citizens convicted of such offences.
