Man tells of finding hit man for suspect

OFF THE WIRE
More testimony piled up Thursday against a Greeley gxxx member accused of trying to hire a killer to get rid of a woman he was charged with raping last year.

Christian Hanson, 22, is facing several felony counts in the case that spans the past year. He had apparently been ordered to attack a woman who had provided information to prosecutors in a case that charged Alexis Chaparro-Campos with killing Matthew Luna on June 13, 2009.

After the woman identified Hanson as the man who raped her with a foreign object while his fellow gxxx members threatened to kill her, Hanson is alleged to have sought a contract killer to get rid of the woman.

Jeremy Peirano, an admittedly desperate man hoping to reduce his own time in jail by cooperating with authorities, testified Thursday. While living in the same pod in Weld County Jail, he said he heard Hanson's requests for a killer and offered help. He eventually set him up with an undercover officer posing as a member of the Sons of Silence motorcycle gxxx who would be happy to take money and drugs to “take care of business.”

Peirano, now a prisoner of the state Department of Corrections, testified that self-preservation wasn't his only motivation in alerting authorities to Hanson's plan.

“I knew it would help my case, but he was going to kill a girl,” Peirano said on the stand, as deputies stood by. “If I knew she got killed with the knowledge I had, and I didn't do anything, I wouldn't be able to live with that.”

Prosecutors also played several phone calls in which Peirano had helped Hanson contact “Biker Dan,” the undercover officer.

In the calls, which were recorded by Weld County Jail, Biker Dan asks Hanson about taking care of business in coded talk so authorities wouldn't be alerted.

In one call, Biker Dan asks, “You know what you're getting into?”

He answers, “Always.”

In another call, Biker Dan states, “I want half upfront.”

Hanson answers: “We'll probably bring it all upfront. ... I don't like to owe anybody anything.”

Testimony continues today, and the case is expected to wrap up next week.

http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20101105/NEWS/101109845/1005&parentprofile=1001