Transcript of Take Two

Tonight on Dateline.

These guys are professionals.

Once they grab her, I don't know what's going to happen to her. All I know is that she's not going back home. A brand new twist in a mind-bending mystery.

They'll take her and no one will ever find her body.

A kidnapping and then murder. To say that this case took a turn no one expected is really the understatement of my career.

Nobody saw this coming.

Oh, freak accident, right? Exactly. Nice and clean, no problems, very smooth. He's trying to kill his wife.

He kills her.

He has every There was a lot of money involved here.

He was a doctor. You just didn't expect this of a doctor.

It can't be a robbery, it can't be a shooting, it can't be anything like that.

She was the girlfriend.

I was the one who put it into motion.

Is there any way anyone can hit her and then say it was an accident?

We can make that happen.

He had already told me the guys were flying up from Florida, the black ops. He said, "My guys don't back down from a plan." This is what you want done.

Nobody's coming back.

Did your jaw drop? Yes.

It was shocking.

Lightning was about to strike twice.

A sizzling affair, a secret murder plot, and a stunner of an ending that you'll never see coming.

I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Andrea Canning with Take Two. The story you're about to hear may sound hard to believe. I don't think I've ever seen a twist like this in a Dateline before, and you've seen a lot of Dateline. A murder-for-hire plot involving a luxury car salesman.

She believed that I would harm the guy.

A desperate housewife. Don't you worry, you are done. A seductive mortician.

It was Horrible.

And a podiatrist.

I didn't know if it was hitmen. I didn't know what it was.

Total shock.

Total shock.

The crime was caught on camera.

One car will hit her. Okay, 200,000. Okay, when can we get the money?

But just when it seemed the case was closed, the plot reignited. Even harder to believe, the target this time.

That was shocking.

9 years later, a brand new ending.

What were you thinking?

Why would you do this again? Our story begins in early April 2016 in Rockland County, New York, nestled along the Hudson River, about an hour's drive north of New York City. It was late afternoon when a car salesman got a visit from a former customer. What did this woman want to talk to you about?

About planning on killing her boyfriend's wife.

And you're a car salesman?

Yes.

What are you thinking when this woman comes in to ask you this?

Kind of blanked out a little bit. Obviously, the only thing I could ask is why. She didn't want to come forward and give me the full information, but she was giving me little by little.

Did she look like the kind of woman who would be coming in to hire a hitman?

No way.

Not a million years I wouldn't think that.

Markenzie, who asked us not to use his last name for privacy reasons, had been selling cars for more than 16 years. He said this was a first. Did you make a comment that would lead her to come back to you?

Oh, yeah.

Markenzie thinks she misinterpreted something he said in an earlier conversation when she accused her ex-husband of harming their children.

I just pictured that happen to one of my kids. And—

What was your comment?

We were like, "Hey, you know, what's going on? If you need any help, any kind of situation, we know, you know, a few people that could help you out," meaning that I have a friend of mine in a police station nearby I always call for any reason whatsoever.

Do you think she took what you told her the wrong way?

I think she did.

She thought maybe that you meant, "I know some people who can rough Your ex-husband up?

Yep.

Now she was back talking about a different person. Markenzie worried. Was someone in immediate danger? He stayed composed and kept talking to his former customer.

I had to start making her feel comfortable. I told her that it was not something that I do, but I could potentially get her in touch with the people that could possibly do.

And did you have any background in law enforcement?

No.

You're just a regular guy?

Just a regular guy who hangs out with cops, pick up a few things here and there.

Using his skills as a salesman, he kept the ruse going, even telling her about men he would hire for the job.

These guys are, like, top black ops.

Was she interested?

She was.

After she left, Markenzie immediately texted his friend on the police force.

I kept blowing up his phone to call me, call me, but he was off too. He was playing basketball.

Even though he couldn't reach the officer, he arranged a second meeting for later that night. Here they are on this gas station security footage. What has she brought you?

She brought me a picture in a Ziploc bag.

A picture of the target?

Along with the phone number for the target.

What did you think when you saw that photo?

At first, I was like, okay, really now? This is really serious. And now I put myself out there, and I have no idea how to go ahead from here.

Eventually, his police officer friend called him back. Markenzie didn't know if he should continue. He says his friend urged him to contact detectives.

He asked me how would I feel in the next couple of days watching the news and find her dead in the news, knowing that I could have stopped it.

Markenzie reached out to Ramapo, New York detectives Robert Fitzgerald and Peter Luzan.

When we first heard it, we're like, it's a very unusual case to hear. We don't get too many cases like that. So we were like, well, we'll bring him in. Well, let's see what if it's actually real or not.

What do you ask him?

We get into it like, hey, we're very interested in this story. Let's hear what it is. And he said, listen, I was approached by a female how to get rid of somebody.

Who's the woman who wanted the hit?

It was Kelly Gribluk.

What were you learning about Kelly?

There was some background with Kelly. She was formerly Orthodox Jewish. She was divorced. She had children.

I had been involved with Kelly Gribulak prior to that in a different investigation. So I was familiar with her.

Detective Peggy Broaddock had looked into Kelly's abuse claims about her ex-husband. That case had gone nowhere. Now, investigators were turning to the detective to learn more about Kelly. What did you tell them? And how could that help their investigation?

I just felt that she wasn't a very honest person, that she was deceptive, and that she was someone to be concerned with.

Kelly had 3 young boys and was a former mortician turned aspiring model. So who was the woman Kelly wanted dead? Did she give you a name?

Yeah.

What was the name?

Susan. Susan Bernstein.

Susan Bernstein was a housewife who also had 3 young children. But why was she in Kelly's sights? The investigation was just getting started.

We wanted to set up another meet, and we wanted to make sure we had audio video.

This is where this whole story goes a little bit Hollywood.

Yeah, literally.

It's almost something like, are you sure? Because this doesn't sound possible, right?

Her jaw was on the floor. She was like shocked.

This is dark. A second murder-for-hire plot by the same person.

We couldn't believe it.

Detectives set out to catch Kelly Gribblek in the act of planning a murder.

The thing we needed to do is to get Markenzie's cooperation.

Markenzie, the car salesman and father of four, had earned Kelly's trust, so detectives asked him to keep playing playing the role of bad guy. That's got to be really daunting.

It was kind of cool, you know, in a way, you know, like, that's like 007 type thing.

They told him to set up another meeting with Kelly. The location: a Walmart parking lot directly across the street from the police station. We can literally see the police department.

Yeah, I mean, you can throw a rock and hit the police station from here.

This time they'd be watching. They'd rigged Markenzie's car with cameras and microphones. So show us where all the cameras were.

Cameras was over here in the center, and the microphone was hanging over here. And under my seat here, I had a phone.

As detectives waited for the meetup to be set, they scrambled to find out more about Kelly and her target, Susan Bernstein. Turned out the detectives knew Susan's husband well. Dr. Ira Bernstein. He's your police foot surgeon?

Yes.

A lot of the people that were involved in this investigation in the detective unit were patients of his.

They discovered that Ira had been having an on-again, off-again affair with Kelly. I've always wondered why someone chooses feet as a doctor.

Feet are extremely important.

Yes. He told us that he and his wife Susan were separated when in walked Kelly.

It was not exclusive, and it was not, like, lightning at first sight.

Ira says Kelly had been a welcome escape from a marriage that was falling apart. According to Ira, his wife had had it easy raising their young children with the help of a live-in nanny.

Her days were filled with lunch dates with friends, spa appointments, mani-pedis.

While he was working day and night at his foot surgery centers to keep up with the family's lavish lifestyle.

My house was 13,000 square feet on 14 acres of land, and we had tennis courts, a pool, a pool house, a lake, a dock, boats.

Did you have other houses?

I had about 20 different buildings and houses that I would rent out.

He says Susan was the one spending most of the money.

I overextended myself, and then her spending just started amplifying and amplifying to the point where, you know, $40,000 a month on her credit cards was standard operating procedure.

What was she buying?

Everything from vacations she would plan, clothes, jewelry.

Ira claims he was lonely and resentful and admits he cheated on Susan. But he says when she found out, instead of filing for divorce, they decided to stay together with unorthodox rules.

We decided to have an open marriage, and she could start dating people.

But he says it wasn't long before Susan shut down that arrangement and they legally separated. Are you on the market again? Are you looking now that you're separated from your wife?

Yes, I'm dating a couple different girls.

And that's when he met Kelly. She had embarked on a new career selling shoe orthotics.

She was actually a patient of mine about 4 years earlier. And so she was calling me out of the blue to say she'd like to meet with me and see if we can do business together.

She asked Ira to be part of her company, and he agreed. Their professional relationship quickly turned personal. Ira says he found Kelly hard to resist. Describe her for us, like, physically.

I mean, physically, she's very pretty. She's a model. She goes for photo shoots. She's well-built, and she's got a sexy kind of look to her.

Ira says Kelly had gone through a traumatic divorce that left her family in tatters.

We could relate perfectly, and I think that's why we kind of meshed so quickly together. She was a big comfort to me.

But after 6 months of dating Kelly, he says he and Susan decided to give their marriage one more try. He was tired of spending money on lawyers and missed his children.

I couldn't see them enough. I couldn't be involved in their life as much. I was frustrated, and I said to her, you know what, if there's a chance we can work this out still, I'm in. I want to work it out. And I told Kelly, I feel like if I don't give it a try to see if I can make this work, I'll always regret it. And she said, I understand. If you need to do this, you do it.

So if she understood, why was she now trying to have Susan killed? 3 days after Kelly first approached Markenzie, he called the detectives to alert them that Kelly had agreed to meet again, and soon. Okay, all units, a team of detectives raced to the parking lot to get in position while Markenzie sat in his car. So she pulls up As expected. Where are you guys?

Well, we either have one car close, as close as we can get, another car here, maybe a third there, and a fourth in case they leave or go somewhere we can follow them.

Makenzie needed to convince Kelly to get in his car to get her on tape.

And she gets— actually gets out of the car and gets into that car. We're like, this is fantastic.

What are you hearing coming from inside that car?

Well, first they greet each other. Remember, they know each other. It's So there's some friendly conversation, and then it comes around to the plan.

It can't be a robbery. It can't be a shooting. It can't be anything like that.

Kelly suggested it should look like an accident.

But understand now, in a car accident, it's not foolproof. It's a 50-50% chance.

He told her his men were ready, but they needed more information, like details about Susan's car.

I know you told me it's a Mercedes-Benz. What color? Black. OK. Does she work? No.

Oh, Marcia, she shops a lot. She spends a lot of money.

Then Kelly started talking money. Had you coached Markenzie on how much it should be, what he should say?

Well, we actually were trying to let her— Matter of fact, I think Kelly's the one who originally brought up a price of $200,000 to have it done. And he was like, he just went with it.

You want to pay $200,000? Okay. When can we get it apart?

This was just the first of many meetings to come.

Right.

Yeah.

It was a strong start, but it wasn't enough for an arrest. No money had changed hands. Another meeting was in the works, and Kelly was about to dig herself in deeper.

All right, so you'll do it for $100?

We'll do it for $100, but you got me after.

You know me. If I say something, I mean it.

Markenzie, the car salesman, was now fully committed to his role as the bad guy. Are you driving around with the cameras and microphones at all times?

Yes, we had a switch in the trunk where we turned the equipment on and off. I would meet with the other detectives like 20 minutes to half hour before I meet up with her so we could make sure everything is up and running.

On day 2 of the sting operation, detectives waited for Kelly to show up again, this time in a CVS parking lot.

We're figuring that no hitman's going to be one in the same exact spot every time, so let's move it around just to change up locations to make it look more realistic.

Each time you were there?

All the time. We would always be multiple cars with at least 2 officers or 2 detectives in each car.

Like clockwork, Kelly pulled in and got into Markenzie's car. They had coached him on how to handle the meeting.

We just told Markenzie, just go along with whatever she says. First of all, you know, don't talk her into anything. Just go along with that. Said, I can make that happen.

Was that like a either a hit and run, like when she's getting out of a car, or like plain and absent? Somebody backed up into her and the guy stayed and said, I didn't see her. You know, it was plain and absent. So There's no investigation.

Kelly wanted to move fast. Detectives listened as she offered details on Susan's upcoming schedule.

So this weekend, she's like, she's going to a party on Saturday night. I'm sure it's Saturday during the day. She's going to go out to the spa. She's going to go out there and here and everything.

Then Kelly revealed that Susan knew all about her relationship with Ira. In fact, she said Susan had recently texted her.

Unbelievable. You know, because we have psycho—

she is—

I haven't answered. She texted me like the last 3 weeks or 4 weeks.

Why is she texting your husband?

She thinks he's with me. Look how mean she is. She calls me a prostitute and a slut. See how mean she is?

Kelly moved on to lock in a price for the hit.

So what's with the price?

The negotiable? For you, I'll make some exceptions.

Detectives continue to listen in. In as she negotiated Makenzie from $200,000 down to $100,000.

All right, so you'll do it for $100,000?

I'll do it for $100,000, but you got me after.

You know me, if I say something, I mean it.

I'm not—

you know, she brought up $100,000 to try to get a little bit of the money. No one's just gonna do a hit and not give a hitman some money.

Down payment.

Yeah.

So Makenzie told her he needed good faith money to keep the hitmen interested.

At least give me something. Give me something to start.

She agreed to pay a deposit. But at the next meeting, she didn't bring it. Instead, she asked about his refund policy.

Did they say, by the way, the deposit is refundable?

Yeah, I couldn't believe she was saying it. So, she's like, hey, is this refundable if it doesn't happen? You know, we were just like, if she wants to say it's refundable, tell her it's refundable. Just let it play out. Let her try to give some money.

It was not about the money. It was about getting the contract, negotiating.

You're good at that because you're a car salesman.

Hey.

Things were moving in the right direction, but detectives were convinced there was more to the story, that Kelly wasn't working alone. She kept referring to someone else.

We could tell during the conversations, and Kelly were like, I need to go back and talk to him.

Listen, the money's not the problem. I'm telling you right now, the problem is that he's worried that he's gonna get investigated. He'll break down. He's so weak right now, he won't be able to handle interrogation.

But Kelly was essentially doing all the dirty work.

She was the point person.

Eventually, we actually do a wiretap on our phone too. So she was totally committed to the crime already, and we already had her. Now we just needed to make sure that he commits as well.

By now, the detectives were pretty sure they knew who he was, but they needed him to meet with Makenzie, and soon they learned Kelly and her accomplice had approached other people about murdering Susan.

They had talked to maybe 2 or 3 other people. Kelly was the one putting it out there, hey, do you know anybody that can help me?

How did you learn that she had been talking to other people?

It just came up during investigation. She, she actually mentioned it during conversation with Makenzie.

Who were these other people?

One person that Kelly worked with, you know, a long time ago. Another person that Makenzie knew. From a car dealership once, and a daughter of a nanny.

And they all said no?

Yeah, they all just, you know, they blew it off. Like, you know, is this for real? Like, you know, this is kind of weird. You know, I'm not getting involved with this.

So while this plot is unfolding, are you telling Susan that she could be a target?

No.

No, we didn't at that time, because we weren't sure what would happen.

You mean, like, she might blow it, or—

She might, maybe she might— she would, you know, take off for her own reasons, you know.

Did you worry about Susan?

Sure, absolutely. That's what— and what we would always have Markenzie occasionally say, "Hey, are you shopping around? I mean, is there anybody else?" Again, we were up on Kelly's phone, so we know she's safe.

So you had this inside intel that was kind of giving you that sense that Susan's okay right now?

Yes. We felt safe that we were controlling this.

They asked Markenzie to push Kelly for a meeting with her partner.

I thought you said you guys talked it over and guys planned it all.

Yeah, we did.

And Kelly was about to deliver.

All of a sudden, I think he's pulling in.

He finally showed, right?

So then we're all like, you know, ducking because we don't want him to see us.

As Ramapo detectives continued to investigate the plot to kill Susan Bernstein, they focused on flushing out Kelly's partner. So far, she was the only one who'd shown up to arrange the hit.

We wanted to make sure that it wasn't just Kelly saying it, so it was important to have him come to the scene.

Detectives suspected he was the one in charge, especially when it came to the money.

He's not comfortable with giving the $50, but he's going to give everything when it's done.

Okay.

Is that okay with you? I mean, he's not— Listen, listen, he's not gonna fuck with the killers.

Markenzie kept asking to meet him, and then one evening it happened. A few days into the investigation, they both showed up.

All of a sudden, I think he's pulling in.

He finally showed, right?

So then we're all like, you know, ducking because we don't want him to see us.

Who is the other person? That was Ira Bernstein, Kelly's lover and the police foot surgeon. Is that just blowing your mind that it's—

well, Ira, one of the funny things is we were both a long time ago.

Now we had to be concerned, is he going to recognize us when we're doing these surveillances?

Kelly and Ira didn't get in the car, so Mark Kenzie got out.

Hey, how are you? Hey, I'm back. Good to meet you. How are you? Good, good.

They could hear Ira say he was worried about incriminating messages Kelly had been sending Makenzie on Facebook Messenger.

So my concern is that this whole Facebook—

Thinking on his feet, Makenzie assured Ira the messages weren't a problem, even though that wasn't true.

Uh, data, you can't really trace data. You could see how much data you use and you can't see— You're saying that they cannot— It's not text messages. You're saying I want to see it and it's not in the screen. You can see text messages. You could see phone calls. Text messages you can see. Yeah, exactly. You can't see this? You can't see data.

Kelly, still outside, said she was getting cold.

I need to sit in the car.

Myra, he actually got in the car with the informant. It was a game changer.

Back then, Richard Moran was a Rockland County executive assistant DA. He was on the case from the beginning.

So, do you want me to give you the rest afterwards? Whatever makes you feel comfortable. Once it's done, obviously, it's not a problem at all. Yeah, I'm thinking ASAP. The lesser you two know, the better. I agree.

Wasn't that enough to arrest him right then and there?

No money had been exchanged. In New York, you do need an overt act. And we had some stuff, but we did not want to jump the gun on this.

When Ira hesitated about going through with the hit, Makenzie calmly told him he had to make a decision.

No, I know, I know. Obviously I'm scared. No shit. This has been done smoothly multiple times already. That has nothing to do with you. Like, we never had this conversation. You've never met me. You've never met me, and we don't know each other, and I have no idea who you are. That's why I told her. I was trying to keep as much out of these spots. I know, I know. All right, all right, let me talk to Kel for a second. Very fast. All right.

Ira never came back. A little while later, Kelly hopped back in.

Okay, he feels so bad. So he gave me the money and he said that he wants me to hold it. He wants to know— he wants you to know that I have the money, but until Until he makes a decision, he's like, now what? He's scared. What should I do?

I can understand. It's a natural thing. I can understand that. But at the end of the day, that's not the way of the business.

Markenzie asked her again for a deposit.

If you give it to me now, if I have money in my hand, I can show my guys that, okay, you know what, definitely the business is ready to go. We gotta move on. I'm not asking you to. He's the boss, right?

Kelly said Ira was worried about his children and what would happen after their mother died.

I was thinking, like, how am I going to take care of my kids?

That's what I haven't done before.

She saw another life for her, I think. Her and Ira were going to just live together and be happy, you know. I don't think she pictured the, uh, the negative side of it, of the children always not having their real mother.

She'd brought up the topic in an earlier meeting.

What am I going to do? I have 3 kids. How am I going to be a parent? I said, I'll help you.

I'm not trying to be a hardass or anything. They're kids. I don't know if in your religion you do that. Take them somewhere to have fun. Trust me.

That's why I said, take them to an arcade or something.

Let them play basketball. Let them play games if they want to. Chuck E. Cheese.

That's exactly what I said.

She talked about one time with Mackenzie in the car, she's like, we're gonna have such parties after this when this is over. And then another time she felt guilty sitting in the car and she's like, am I gonna go to hell for this?

One step closer, you understand?

No, one step closer will be Mackenzie. Okay, here is the deposit, hold on to it. Let me get you the AOK next week. Well, let me get you the AOK in two days. There's nothing she Give me a day to work on it.

Markenzie arranged another meeting, hoping Ira would show again. He didn't, but something big happened.

How are you? So I have the thing that we talked about, and it's a deposit like we spoke about.

Cold hard cash, exactly what the investigators needed. But before Kelly handed it over, She wanted to talk again about how Susan would be killed. The staged accident. Turns out it was something Kelly knew all about. She'd accidentally run over and killed someone when she was a teenager.

I was in an accident before, by mistake. He ran in front of my car. They took—

they took—

my car was impounded. I was taken with the police car to the police station. I was given blood tests. Drug tests, everything.

It sounded very much like the plan she proposed at their prior meeting.

Is there any way anyone can hit her and then stay and say it was an accident and take responsibility and just say, look, I'm clear, it was an accident?

Clearly we can, we can make that happen.

Now, once again, he reassured her that was the plan.

The accident's gonna happen, somebody's gonna stay on the scene.

With that, Kelly reached into her purse, pulled out a wad of cash, and handed it to Markenzie.

So how much we talking right now? $2,000. And how is he going to break me the rest? How? Cash. How much?

What did we say, $100? Mm-hmm.

So $98. Okay. Nothing in it.

Nothing until we give you the go-ahead. He said just be on standby.

All right.

Once you turned that money over, that was the next step. We had Kelly locked in now.

So Kelly's cooked?

Correct.

But detectives didn't arrest her then because they still didn't have enough on Ira. And just as they were about to get it, Kelly dropped a bombshell.

We were like, oh no, this is right in the middle of our investigation. Location here, this could destroy it.

As detectives waited for Ira and Kelly to give the go-ahead to have Susan killed, their investigation took a dramatic turn. The couple had their sights on two new targets.

Kelly shows up to one of the meetings and says, "He hasn't committed yet, but he wants you to take care of two insurance investigators." So all of a sudden we're like, "Where's this going?" Take care of as in—

Well—

Kill them?

He didn't want them killed. He wanted them to kind of be taught a lesson.

And that would entail what?

She basically said, "We need to have these two investigators beat up." They were investigating him, and right away we assumed it was something to do with his medical profession. Maybe he's doing something fraud, insurance claims that they wanted. Yeah, they're from an insurance company, you know. They wanted these two guys beat up, and it had to be ASAP. And right away we're like, oh no, this is right in the middle of our investigation. This could destroy it. They might be testing us or testing Makenzie.

Detectives wondered if this new job was a way for the couple to see if Makenzie was the real deal.

And Kelly asked him, are you a police officer?

You're sure you're not involved with the police, right?

We believe that they don't think that someone working with the police would actually have two innocent people just doing their job beat up.

And they were willing to pay quickly to get it done. Kelly and Makenzie had agreed on a $5,000 fee. She handed him a brown bag filled with $2,500 in cash, half now, half after the job was done.

So he wants to make sure they're out of commission for a long time. Any possibility to be done this week or not?

Detective Luzan reached out to the insurance investigators and discovered why they were in the couple's crosshairs.

I called them and said, listen, I really want to speak to you in person. I didn't want to tell them over the phone. They said, well, we're coming to Rockland anyway because we have an investigation into Ira Bernstein.

Luzan says they were investigating Ira for insurance fraud. Suspecting that he'd been padding his insurance claims. How did these insurance investigators feel when you told them that there's this plot out to have you beaten up?

They couldn't believe it. They were shocked, and then they were very concerned.

The detective asked the investigators for their help. This is where this whole story goes a little bit Hollywood.

Yeah, literally. We all got together and came up with an idea like, listen, this might sound crazy, but maybe we can get any a makeup artist, make it look like they were actually beat up.

How did they react to this idea?

Well, I think one of them was like, I got to talk to my wife first. But they agreed.

Police set up in this parking lot next to the insurance investigator's office. They had two undercover officers pretend to throw punches.

And we took a lot of pictures of them beating them up. And we had to actually tell the investigators, like, don't overdo it. Just fight back a little bit.

They took pictures from every angle, then had to choose which ones to show Kelly and Ira.

We're being like editors. We're trying to figure out which looks—

which looks the most real, right?

The most real. Like, and it was funny, we just kept going back and forth on which ones we should choose.

This is a huge moment in our case, you know, and that they— if they believe this ruse about the beating up the investigators, then we can probably get to the, the big thing with, you know, where he's trying to kill Susan.

I think once this is done, he'll feel more comfortable to move ahead with that right away.

Awesome.

Now the pressure was on the car salesman. He texted Kelly to meet him. He had 3 photos tucked inside a newspaper ready to show her.

And we had coached him ahead of time, no matter what happens, she's probably going to say, I want to take these pictures to Ira. Like, you know, we don't— we want Ira to come out. You know, when we need him to start, you know, him to commit, no matter what happens, You make sure that the pictures stay with you.

Everyone was in place waiting. Kelly was late. Then she finally showed.

I'm so sorry. You don't understand. I've been all over the freaking world tonight.

With his heart pounding, Markenzie showed her the photos.

So he wants to make sure they're not going to come to work with a broken leg next week. No, they're done. What'd they do to them?

Okay, let's say you know the baby.

She seemed satisfied, and just as the detectives predicted, Kelly asked to take the photos to show Ira.

I think you're gonna give me the pictures, sir.

Come on, that's better for you not to have them. Better for him not to have them.

So they got— they got both sides?

Oh, yes.

Markenzie followed the detective's instructions perfectly, but then he came up with an idea all on his own. He knew law enforcement wanted Ira, so he told Kelly to call him.

Hello? Hi, how are you? Hey, Doc, you, you want speaker with me? I can show them to her, but I don't want to give it to her, obviously. So, right.

So he suggested to Ira that he could swing by his office to show the doctor the photos in person.

We'll come to the office, to the parking lot.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Hey, listen, you're the boss at this point, you know. Okay. Um, all right. Why don't you come over here? I'll try to run outside for a second.

Okay.

All right.

Okay. Bye.

It sounded like the perfect plan, but is there really ever such a thing? Are you on the edge of your seats when he's pointing to that camera?

Oh, yeah. Are you kidding me? You know, this is it. He's looking right at the camera when we're done.

The murder-for-hire plot had taken a detour. For now, it was assault-for-hire. Makenzie, the informant, waited outside of Ira's medical practice to show him pictures of the insurance investigators. This is when you need Ira. To come to the car.

Yeah, Ira's already shown his face once already, you know. Now we need Ira to come out. This is a huge moment in our case.

Markenzie convinced Ira to see the proof that the insurance investigators had been beaten up.

We're going to have the doctor look at the pictures, and this is going to commit him to the assault on the investigators.

Here are Ira and Kelly walking toward Markenzie's car.

The doctor comes out of his office, he's in his scrubs, goes into the car.

Hey, how's it going? How are you? All right.

As soon as he got in the car, I turned around, I look at her, and I said, can you excuse us for a minute?

Why did you want her out?

To know if it was her putting the ideas in his head, if it was her motivating him to do all that so she could jump in and inherit the, the money.

Did she leave?

Yes, she did.

So you two are now Man to man with him?

Yeah.

What's he saying?

He said, you got them? I said, yeah, I got them.

Definitely them. Definitely them.

Markenzie showed him the 3 photos, but Ira immediately seemed suspicious.

Did it have me standing right next to each other? Yeah, so they told him, I guess they want a break or something.

And he's like, why are they wearing baseball cap? And, you know, regular jacket.

I said, "I don't know." You're really having to think on your feet.

Mm-hmm.

To distract Ira, Markenzi changed the subject and told him he needed to keep the photos.

I don't want to give them to you because I don't need them. What do I need them for? I don't deal with them. As long as it's done and done correctly, I just don't want them showing up at work anytime soon. Exactly. No, no, no, no. It's all foolproof.

At this point, Ira seemed satisfied.

He's like, okay, good, good. And, uh, we're like, it's a big relief.

Yeah, remember, if he thinks they're fake, now he's really gonna think something's up here.

Detectives had coached Makenzie on what to do after he showed Ira the pictures.

Ask him what's going on with the wife, or give him a deadline. Say, listen, it has to be by this time or we're walking away, you know. But it has to be his decision. Don't, don't force him to do anything.

So now the big question is When is the next job? Give me a week to think better, okay? All right. And I'll— what do you do? I don't want to be too pushy. I know, I know. I give you by this weekend. Okay, well, I'm gonna be away for the weekend, but I'll be at the end of the weekend. I'll tell you. Okay.

Then the good doctor said what law enforcement was waiting to hear.

So if I— I'll tell her. If she gives you the okay, then it came from me.

To detectives' ears, Ira was admitting he was the one pulling the strings. Not Kelly. It was a critical moment. But just as they were ready to high-five each other, Ira turned around and pointed to something in the back seat. He was looking directly at the hidden camera. Are you on the edge of your seats when he's pointing to that camera?

Oh yeah, are you kidding me?

This is it.

He's looking right at the camera when we're done.

Do you have a little moment of panic? Oh yeah.

My heart just dropped. And obviously, with my training, I get to pick it right back up.

Mark Kenzie does a great job. He leans back and goes, "Oh, that's something for the kids' games where they plug into it." That's the receiver for the headsets.

That's the receiver for the headsets? Receiver for headsets.

All right.

Whatever it is I tell him, he believes it because the only thing that was in his head is how He wants to get this thing done.

Crisis averted. Then, without skipping a beat, Ira moved on to the details of how Susan should be killed, agreeing she would be hit by a car.

A freak accident. Happen every day, right? Exactly. Nice and clean, no problems, very smooth. Very smooth. Got no worries, nothing, nothing. Then I get back to you, okay?

Ira leaves, but you don't quite have what you need yet. You're not all the way there. You haven't crossed the finish line. Yeah, they needed Ira to give the final okay for his wife's murder. 5 days later, Kelly set up a meeting.

Finally she calls. Hey, let's have another talk, you know, let's have another meet at the Walmart. Like, you know, this is going to be the answer. It's either going to be yes Yes or no? If it's a no, it's a good thing for Ira Bernstein that, you know, he's not going to kill the mother of his children. You know, so be it.

And part of us were actually, you know, morally there was a little part of us that was hoping maybe he won't go that far, maybe he'll step back and say this is just wrong.

Definitely.

You know, because we didn't know him and we're hoping maybe he'll say no.

That's a happier ending, right? So what would the ending be later that day?

Well, she shows up again in the One more parking lot. This time she won't get into the car.

Detectives were worried since Ira may have been onto their hidden camera. He could have warned Kelly to stay out of the car. So is that game over?

No, it's not game over because we have audio on Markenzie himself.

But then she said there was a problem.

What's up?

These are a few concerns.

Huh?

Red flags.

Why?

Was the detective's plan about to unravel?

We were like, did we miss it? We were like, what just happened?

What happened was far more complicated than it seemed. At least that's what Ira and Kelly say. Did you want Susan Bernstein dead? Standing outside the informant's car, Kelly was about to give their final answer, a yes or a no for the hit on Susan Bernstein. Then she hesitated. She told Makenzie Ira had been checking up on the insurance investigators to make sure they'd actually been beaten up.

You call the hospital, then they're not in any hospital up there.

Okay, so what you want me to do?

He's a little worried.

So now he's paranoid about what now? But guys, these He didn't get beat up?

No, that it may be, you know, this is just like a setup or something, or—

Come on now.

Despite all of her reservations, detectives listened as Kelly spoke again.

Okay, so the answer is this.

We don't hear any answer.

We're like, did we miss it? Like, we heard him say, okay, well, what's the next step? And we're like, what just happened?

She's holding up a phone. She had typed the word yes. Inside the phone, so she wasn't verbally going to say it.

But it didn't matter. Detectives now had confirmation Ira and Kelly were in, and the date was set. The couple believed Susan would be run over in 4 days. The prosecutor was ready to greenlight their arrests.

Once Kelly says yes and agrees to give him money, the investigation is, for the most part, complete.

Detectives moved in on Kelly at the Walmart parking And how did this go down? Was it like a SWAT situation? Was it just a couple of officers? It was—

well, there were several officers in plainclothes surrounding the area, but it was just 2 officers who approached her.

She was shocked?

Yeah, she was shocked. Actually, I went to the door, and I said, you know, "I believe you know what this is gonna be about." When Kelly entered the police station, another staged Hollywood moment was waiting for her.

Detectives had Mark Kenzie, the informant, handcuffed. Sitting in a holding room.

She saw him in there. I saw her eyes meet his eyes, and I was like, so now she knows the supposed hitman's arrested.

The gig is up.

Maybe she'll come back and talk to us.

Turn around.

You have any weapons or anything on you?

No.

They hope that seeing Markenzie in custody might be enough to get Kelly talking.

Do you understand each of these rights that I've explained to you?

But after reading her her rights—

You're in some trouble.

I'm I'm not gonna lie to you.

Kelly let the detectives do most of the talking. They told her she was caught on tape planning the hit. Then they tried to convince her to turn on Ira.

I don't know if you worry about him, but right now Kelly should be worried about Kelly, right? So right now, are you in trouble? Obviously you're in a police department, right? I want you to just focus on, like, on you and remember, I gotta do what's best for me, right?

Because in the end, you don't want, you know, Something like, you take all the fault. We know that.

Please don't make me answer these questions.

Hold on, look at me, look at me.

Killing me too hard.

Okay, it's not too hard.

They changed tactics and revealed that Markenzie had been working undercover with them.

Well, like, did you see Markenzie? I said, Markenzie's with us.

And then I go out, we actually bring— we bring Markenzie to the room.

What did she say?

She was just like Her jaw was on the floor. She was, like, shocked. I think he's with us. He's not— we just put him there so that you would see that, but he's with us.

All right?

Is that the truth, Markenzie?

It's true. Okay.

So I'm not lying to you.

All right?

All right. Thanks, but I'll talk to you in a little bit.

He's not under arrest. So now who's the only one that's here in trouble right now?

Who is it?

You. But instead of coming clean, she blamed Markenzie.

Why was he so pressuring us?

Why was he so— No, no, no, no.

Don't even play that act with me. You did not get pressured. We did everything we can to let you guys walk away from this.

When pointing the finger at the car salesman didn't work, Kelly went after Ira's wife, Susan.

I really wanted just for him to divorce her, but— It wouldn't have helped. She would have been worse. She would have tried to get him. I was actually scared for my life. If you look at my phone, I didn't even respond to her messages. She called me all kinds of names and all these kinds of nasty things that she would say to me, and she would follow me, and, and she poured coffee all over my coat. My coat is still in the cleaners. She would harass me, and I never ever did anything back to her.

I never—

Kelly was willing to throw everyone under the bus except Ira.

Be honest with us. Was that your money or was it Ira's money? Kelly, I understand.

Don't make me answer.

I know you love him. I understand that. Kelly, do yourself a favor, okay? Just be honest. Is that bad to be honest?

I'll be honest. I love him.

Has he ever said He loves you, Kelly. You know why I'm asking that? Because I'm on the phone. I was listening. Not one time did I ever hear him say I love you.

A few hours later, on his way home from a dinner in New York City, 42-year-old Ira Bernstein was pulled over near his house and arrested.

And he was so nervous, he was shaking away.

He was saying, my life is over, right? My life is over. I think he said I should just kill myself at that point.

A little later on that night.

We'll be somebody in a few minutes, let you know what's going on.

Oh my God, how big is this?

Does that have to do with medicine?

What's that?

Does that have to do with medicine?

I don't know nothing about medicine. I'm not locking anybody up for, uh, something to do with medicine.

Isn't that someone else that does that?

Am I gonna be in newspapers?

Honestly, I don't know.

I couldn't tell you. I'm sorry, what's that?

I'm never gonna practice again. Ira and Kelly were charged with conspiracy and solicitation to commit murder. But if you ask Ira, there is far more to this story.

He made it very clear that we were going to be fed to the alligators if we didn't go through with this.

While out on bail in 2017, Ira Bernstein agreed to sit down with Dateline.

There was no way in hell I was ever going to go through with this and hurt Susan.

He says the video of him planning his wife's murder was just a snapshot of a bigger picture. Picture.

Yeah, I think so. ASAP. The lesser you two know, the better.

I agree that there was so much more to the story.

Things had reached a horrible point. I was living under horrible stress.

The downward spiral began, he says, after he and Susan decided to have an open marriage.

And I think we're getting along great, but what she's doing is she's plotting. She cleaned out the bank accounts. She took the jewelry, she took the kids, and she went to her parents' house in Maryland.

After that, Ira says police knocked on his door. Susan had filed a restraining order.

The sheriff gives me 20 minutes to pack my stuff, whatever I could grab. I am escorted out of my house. I wind up in my parents' house living in my old high school bedroom.

This is the marriage from hell at this point.

This is now the marriage from hell.

Ira says Susan claimed he was physically and verbally abusive to her and their children.

I am the least abusive person in the world. I don't even discipline my children, OK? They walk all over me like I'm a teddy bear.

Several months later, Susan withdrew the restraining order, and Ira says she wanted to reconcile. He agreed to try. But soon enough, the fighting flared up, and that's when he fell for Kelly.

And at this point, I had already hired her, and she's working for me.

What's she doing for you?

Everything. She is literally doing everything from scheduling my appointments. We were looking at properties, we were negotiating things. She was helping run the practice a little bit, and she was helping me in my house too. I mean, she would help me go shopping, she would make sure I had food in the refrigerator.

These are all the things you wanted Susan to do?

These are all the things that I wanted Susan to do.

Susan had other plans. He says she was out to get him. She knew he had a secret. It had to do with insurance fraud. Susan discovered he'd been overbilling for medical services. That's why Ira paid to have those insurance investigators beat up. Did you feel like Susan was trying to blackmail you in any way?

She was trying to blackmail me in every way. She would look at me and she would say, "Listen, I have broken into your emails. I have printed out and recorded all of your business dealings. And I'm telling you now, If you don't give me everything I want, I'm going to the prosecutor. I'm going to expose you for everything and try to put you in jail.

Ira recorded Susan threatening him. Don't bother coming back.

You're about to fucking jail and fucking court.

Ira claims Susan was using that information to pressure him into signing a postnuptial agreement that stated if they divorced, he would give her most of their assets. Fearing Susan would make good on her threats, he signed it.

Only a moron would have signed this postnuptial agreement if they weren't under severe coercion and distress.

So you're the moron in this?

I am the moron.

This is Ira's version of what happened. We're not sure of Susan's side. She declined to speak to us. Ira says it was during this volatile time that Kelly went looking for a hitman. He says she met with Makenzie 5 times before he even knew about the plot.

She'd already started negotiating price with him and everything, and I said, I don't know if I can bring myself to even consider anything like this.

So Kelly did this on her own?

Yes. She said, you know, I know people that might do this kind of thing. And in my frustration, I discussed it with her a little bit.

Do what kind of thing?

Hurt or kill people. I had a conversation with her about it. It was more fantasy. There was nothing legitimate to it.

What's hard is that a respected doctor was capable of even going down this road.

I don't know what to say. That was not me. That was a different person.

He says the only reason he went along with it was because Makenzie told Kelly it was too late to back out. The black ops were in town.

His friends flew up from Florida. They're mad that they're waiting around. They think that we're playing around with them, and she doesn't think we can back out of this now.

This is real now.

This is real now.

Ira claims Markenzie told Kelly during an impromptu meeting without cameras about a terrifying story involving a former client of his who wanted out.

He said to her, my job is to pick her up at a party, lure her away, bring her to the other guys, and they are going to be feeding her to the alligators for playing around. And he made it very clear that we were going to be fed to the alligators if we didn't go through with this.

You did have another option. You could have just paid them the money and walked away.

We thought about that. It was $100,000 that he wanted at that point. I don't think they would have went away, and we both came to the same conclusion.

But isn't it easier though to just not kill someone and walk away and take the money?

Yes, it just— at the time, we did not feel that that was an option. We didn't feel they were going to stop.

Ira did admit to paying to have those insurance investigators beat up.

I made the biggest wrong decision of my life, which was to put the welfare of myself above the welfare of those investigators and to allow them to be subjected to getting hurt.

What would you say to them?

I don't even know what I could say to them. What I did was disgusting. I will live with that forever. Thank God this is all a sham and nothing happens.

Did you ever think that you could have been part of a sting operation?

You know, the weird thing is I was almost hoping it was part of a sting operation at that point because I wanted to get out of this so badly.

Why should people believe you? People could think, yeah, he's just trying to change his story now because he got caught.

Anyone that knows me knows that I am not a violent person. And I really believe that Susan knows me for 23 years. And even she knows there is no way I would have ever let this happen.

You've heard Ira's story. Now you'll hear from the woman at the center of it all. Did you both imagine life without Susan?

Of course.

And what was that life without her around?

Peaceful.

36-year-old Kelly Gribblek was also out on bail in 2017 when she agreed to speak to us. Just like her boyfriend Ira, Kelly says her story begins with a marriage from hell. In her early 20s, she joined the Hasidic Jewish Jewish community in Rockland County, New York. That's where she met her future husband. Was it a matchmaker situation?

Yes.

Arranged?

Yes.

Because she didn't grow up in the ultra-Orthodox community, she says it affected who the matchmaker chose for her. So you got like a low-level pick, is that what you're saying?

You know, I guess that they would choose somebody on a lower pedigree. I only learned that later. There were a lot of things I learned later. You were clearly not Clearly, he had some deeper issues that I didn't find out until later, unfortunately.

Still, she and her mismatched husband had 3 boys. This is what you wanted?

Yes.

How happy were you?

I was very content with my children. I love taking care of them. I love the time we spend together.

She says eventually the marriage became so toxic she decided to leave the religious community and take her sons with her. With her. But a judge wouldn't allow it and gave her husband primary custody. Would you say that experience changed you, everything you went through with your ex-husband?

Definitely. It was very traumatic. I lost a lot of trust in the, um, in the justice system. I feel like it really failed me and my children.

Then you met Ira.

I met him, uh, while I was still married, actually. He was my doctor.

After her divorce, Kelly says she reached out to Ira to discuss her latest venture, her orthotics business.

We right away hit it off, and there was a spark.

And so you're meeting him just for business reasons?

Correct.

But something else happens?

Yes.

What do you think it was?

Ah, chemistry. He was going through something very similar, and we came to realize that we had a lot of things in common.

The one fly in the ointment, if you will, was his relationship with his soon-to-be ex-wife.

Yes.

Was not good.

No.

And I tried to get them to work things out amicably because I've— I went through a horrendous divorce, and I didn't want to see it tear apart another family.

So when Ira told her he was going to give his marriage another chance, I wanted them to do what was best for their family. Why was it so important for you to see him try to work it out with his wife when you're in love with him?

Because love is supposed to be unselfish, and you should want the best for the other person, not what's right for you. So I really truly loved him, and I thought that whatever would make him happy is what I wanted for him.

She says she not only stopped seeing Ira, she met with Susan to wish her the best. Did it start off friendly?

Yeah, we got along. And at the end of the conversation, she actually said to me, if it doesn't work out between me and Ira, I want to see him end up with you. I think you're really good for him.

Months later, the reconciliation with Susan wasn't going well. Ira ran back to Kelly. Nobody was happy, Kelly says. Especially Susan. You're off with your girlfriend in the Bahamas!

We can't get a check in!

You have to call your dad, your office manager! Kelly says she saw firsthand how Susan's rage could take a toll on Ira.

He was having panic attacks, couldn't sleep at night, nightmares.

When do you have the conversation about what if Susan wasn't here on this earth anymore?

It was around that time.

Who brings it up?

I guess we both were, at that point, you know, like, wouldn't it be so good if she just didn't come home or, you know, if she wasn't in the picture? It was a horrible, horrible thought that I believe that every person has in their lifetime. I don't think that we're evil for having such a thought.

I think the big difference is you both actually crossed over from just thinking about it to doing something about it.

Unfortunately, we did.

Did you worry about those kids not having their mom?

I did.

But it didn't stop you.

No.

Why was this moment more important than those kids having their mom?

Because I saw someone that I loved being hurt, and it was not going to come to an end. She was never going to stop.

Did you both imagine life without Susan?

Of course.

And what was that life without her around?

Peaceful.

She admits she was the one who went hunting for a hitman and says it wasn't until after she started negotiating with Markenzie that she told Ira. Did he give you the green light, though, to keep going?

He didn't tell me not to. He wasn't sure what to do. He's very indecisive with every aspect of his life.

Like Ira, Kelly claims they had a change of heart and tried to stop the hit. But there was a problem. Did you say to Makenzie, "We don't want to do this"?

Yeah, I told him.

And what'd he say? He said, "There's no backing out." Kelly also told us the story about the alligators.

He explained to me that he has to pick up a girl and bring her to the men, and they're gonna be feeding her to alligators.

Did you take that as they could feed us to the alligators?

Absolutely.

Kelly says she and Ira decided to back out anyway. Did you want Susan Bernstein dead?

In the beginning, yes. But at the end, no. We both came to our senses. We're like, "This is crazy.

We're not doing this." I think people are going to have a hard time believing that you really didn't want it to go through after everything you had done to set the plan in motion.

If we really wanted to do this, he would have been paid. Ira is very capable of— of financially making it happen, and he never transferred any money. He never withdrew any money. When I was arrested, I had a dollar on me. And you were supposed to have $48,000.

And that's when a car pulls up behind you.

Correct.

And it's the police. Kelly says she was stunned by the arrest and what she learned at the police station later about Kenzie, that he wasn't a hitman.

I was in shock.

What are you saying to yourself? Like, how could I have believed this?

It was a horrible feeling, and I was kind of relieved. I was relieved that nobody was hurt.

And why should people believe you, that you were relieved, since you went through with it?

Because I'm sitting here today and And I'm remorseful, and I'm sorry, and I'm acknowledging that my actions and my thoughts were horrible.

Is that why you chose to sit down with us? Yes. But was she remorseful enough to help the prosecutor? He was about to offer her a deal. Deal. Would she save herself and agree to be his star witness, or would she continue to protect the man she loved? Kelly seems like she has this fierce loyalty to Ira.

She certainly does.

Prosecutor Moran thought Ira Bernstein might have made a misstep. Ira posted bail and was out of jail in 4 days, but Kelly sat behind bars for 5 months. Why didn't Ira bail her out?

I guess you'd have to ask him. She might have the same question.

The prosecutor figured Kelly was angry at Ira and might roll on him. He offered her a deal while she was still in jail. In exchange for testifying against IRA. She would get 12 years in prison with a chance for parole in 4. Kelly took the deal. Her attorney, Jonathan Rips, told us why. If she were convicted after trial, I'm fairly confident the judge would give her close to the max, which would be 8 1/3 to 25 years, and that's an awfully long time. Plea deal felt safe?

Anything involving state prison that is years in length is going to be an ugly number, but the alternative had there been a conviction, would have been much more drastic.

As Ira's case headed toward trial, it looked like his strategy was to blame it all on his girlfriend. He claimed he never gave the go-ahead to have his wife murdered. That was all Kelly.

She came home on that evening and she told me she had to tell him yes.

So she went rogue on you, you're saying?

I—

pretty much.

The prosecutor says Ira was rewriting history. Evidence told the real story.

When you look at the meetings and you listen to them, Kelly couldn't make one decision. Ira was the one calling the shots. Was she the person who was the conduit? Sure. But in the end, Ira had a goal.

This was all about money in your eyes?

Yes.

He believes Ira had no intention of honoring that postnuptial agreement, the one where he sent it to give Susan most of their assets if they divorced.

Ira Bernstein was a man who wanted to keep everything that, in his eyes, he worked so hard for. And he was going to do what he had to do, whether it be have the insurance investigators beat up or having his wife killed.

The cornerstone really of the defensive case is that, that Ira tried to call it off at the end. But that there were threats. If you don't go through with this, harm could come to you.

That's simply, um, not the case. In fact, after they claimed they were subject to the rest, they actually hire him to do the other job, to beat up the two men.

And he says nowhere on the tapes or in text messages did Ira and Kelly say they changed their minds about killing Susan.

Even if they did change their mind They never called the police to tell the police, hey, there's a hitman out there hired to kill Susan. They never called Susan to say watch out. They did nothing.

And Moran says there was another indicator that Ira and Kelly planned to go through with the murder.

On the day that Kelly told the informant yes, she called and made dinner reservations for the entire doctor's office for May 5th. And that was the day that Susan was going to be run over.

How may I help you?

Hi, I made reservations last night for Cinco de Mayo, and I wasn't sure if I told you 7:30 or 8 o'clock.

It's an alibi. Kelly and Ira wanted everybody from work to see that they were with them acting normal, um, when Susan got killed.

As the trial date drew closer, Moran was feeling pretty good about his case and his star witness. But then a major problem After Kelly got out of jail, instead of rolling on Ira, she moved in with him. Kelly seems like she has this fierce loyalty to Ira.

She certainly does.

Kelly was now too much of a wild card. So instead of going to trial, the prosecutor offered Ira a deal— 15 years in prison, eligible for parole in 5.

There was a real defense here.

Ira's attorney, Jeff Millman, says even though he believed Ira had a strong defense, he knew going before a jury could be a gamble. Here you have two people who've been talking about planning a murder, and then you're supposed to take their word for it that they were trying to call it off.

It's one of the obstacles of trial, absolutely.

And there were Ira's other charges— insurance fraud and ordering the assault on those investigators. So he accepted the deal and pleaded guilty to grand larceny and conspiracy involving the plot to kill his wife.

We resolved everything with the plea— all financial investigations, all crimes alleged to have been committed.

As for his estranged wife Susan, the intended target, she said her piece at Ira's sentencing. She requested not to be on camera. Ira is evil and cold-hearted and a narcissist. The only remorse Ira has is that that the murder did not occur. He is the scariest type of criminal— smart with no remorse. But Ira told us he is remorseful for all the pain he's caused his family, especially his children.

I love my children very much. What I did was wrong. I will spend every day for the rest of my life making it up to them.

So what would his and hers prisons do to Ira and Kelly's relationship? It depends on who you ask.

I don't know where this is going to go. I know I still care about her a lot. I'm hoping we can get through this.

The only good thing that came out of this was that we've both come to the realization that we really love each other.

Kelly believed they'd stay together. Some people call this a twisted love story.

I think it's true love. I think what we did was really, really wrong, and if I could go back, I would do everything differently, but I can't. And I can see clearly that my emotions definitely overruled my intelligence.

Why do you think that love is still there?

Because after everything that we've been through, we're still devoted to each other, and care about each other and in a solid relationship.

That's what Kelly said in 2017. She and Ira both spent 4 years in prison, but it appears only one of them learned their lesson. To say that this case took a turn no one expected is really the understatement of my career.

Nobody saw this coming.

After spending 4 years behind bars, both Ira and Kelly were released in 2021, finally free to be together again. How did Kelly feel when she got out? Because when she went in, she was saying that, you know, this was true love and that they would be together.

She wanted absolutely nothing to do with him.

Kelly's lawyer, Jonathan Rips, says when she was in prison, she learned Ira tried to pin the whole thing on her.

Ira had gone through the appellate process, and a lot of his motions involved throwing Kelly under the bus that she was the mastermind.

That was something that broke her heart. He says Kelly has moved on, started a few small businesses, and is close with her children. They're all basically adults now. And she's got contact with them on a daily basis. And the children are doing OK?

They're all doing very, very well.

Meanwhile, Ira and Susan continue to battle it out in court.

He and Susan never got divorced. Even within those 4 years that he was in prison, their divorce was still ongoing.

Detective Peggy Braddock had kept tabs on Ira over the years—

Oh, he's getting out right now.

—ever since her involvement in the 2017 investigation.

I got a pretty good shot.

That's a long divorce proceeding. Yes. Money and assets were still at the center of their ongoing feud. Ira's felony conviction hadn't gotten in the way of his lavish lifestyle.

He's living in a very big mansion in New Jersey. Life is good for Ira.

He even had a new girlfriend. What he didn't have anymore was his medical license. So in 2021, In 2022, Ira went into the landscaping business. But even that presented its challenges.

He could not get a landscaping license because of his prior convictions, his criminal convictions. So he had to work under somebody else's license.

That somebody was a landscaper Ira had used in the past. They partnered up, and Ira took on the role of manager.

So he controlled all the money, and he controlled the accounts. He accepted all payments from clients. The landscaper had relinquished that control basically to Ira.

Detective Braddock says that turned out to be a big mistake for the landscaper. He claimed a large amount of money went missing from the company. The landscaper says that Ira stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from him?

He stated that Ira basically stole his business from him, a business that he had created from the ground up.

The landscaper should have watched state line?

I believe he did, to be honest. But I think—

and he still went into business with him.

He believed Ira's version that he was tricked by Kelly Gribulek, and it was all Kelly's idea.

The landscaper was now certain he'd been duped, especially after what happened next. To say that this case took a turn no one expected is really the understatement of my career. Correct. Nobody saw this coming. The landscaper said he had been listening to Ira complain about Susan and the contentious divorce for months.

Ira would tell him that his wife was trying to take him for everything. She wanted to take his houses. She had turned his kids against him.

The detective says Ira had a solution that sounded eerily familiar. Incredibly, she says, he asked the landscaper if he could find someone to kill Susan. Did your jaw drop?

Yes. It was shocking. It was disturbing. And to be honest, I didn't think he would be foolish enough to try that again.

This was August 2022, 1 year after Ira had gotten out of prison and several years after he told us this. I love my children very much.

What I did was wrong. I will spend every day for the rest of my life making it up.

It's almost something like, are you sure? Because this doesn't sound possible, right? The landscaper saw it as an opportunity. If he could get Ira on tape planning his wife's murder, he could use that recording to convince Ira to walk away from the landscaping business and maybe get some of his money back. So the landscaper is really taking matters into his own hands.

He was. He ordered recording devices on his own. And then he had tried to record the conversation himself. He was asking the landscaper if he had friends or people that he knew who could do this, and the landscaper said that he did.

Does Ira just think that everybody has friends who are assassins? Apparently. I know I can make it happen. On the recording, Ira sounded worried they'd get caught.

What happens when the police talk to them? Nobody's going to find nobody. Are you kidding me? I mean, they're professionals. Professional or they're just straight—

no, you know what I'm saying, guys? Because clearly there's a lot more factors than there were 15, 20 years ago. There's cameras, there's a million things out there now. In fact, they don't see here, so they watch 20 blocks away and they see someone over there. These guys are professionals.

Once they grab her, I don't know what's gonna happen to her. All I know is that she's not going back home.

Can they convict someone on circumstantial evidence? You know what I'm saying? Like, basically, like, listen, you're the ex-husband. You were still going through a messy divorce. You've already tried this once.

About 4 days after this conversation, the landscaper texted Ira that he'd recorded him and said he was going to the police. Ira didn't respond, but a few hours later, Ira's sister, 39-year-old Jacqueline Goldberg, did. That same day, she met the landscaper at a local restaurant where he tried to play the recordings, but he wasn't able to to do that on his laptop.

The laptop wasn't working, so she never heard it.

Jacqueline, who's a lawyer, had now created a problem for herself. So now she's all wrapped up in this.

His sister is now as well, yes.

The landscaper moved on to Plan B. He didn't go to the police. Instead, he went straight to the target, Susan. And I am a certified high-conflict divorce and custody coach who's has apparently made a career out of her experience with Ira. Reach out if you have an ex that is narcissistic, toxic, unstable. Her mind must be blown when she sits down. She was shocked with the landscaper. Yes, that she's in danger yet again. Yes.

Susan immediately contacted the Rockland County District Attorney's Office with this new information and spoke with someone in the in the district attorney's office, who passed the information on to me.

That's how Detective Braddock got the case and started unraveling the dark details. She reached out to Susan.

I called her and spoke with her.

What was your advice to Susan during this time while you're investigating?

Susan's a very cautious person because of the first event, so she knew to call the police if anything was out of the ordinary. She's— a very smart person.

Since the landscaper had already tipped off Ira to his secret recordings, the detective says another undercover sting was out of the question.

Ira had shut off all communication at that time, and it just didn't seem probable. You know, we tried to make a controlled phone call to him, and he wouldn't pick up the phone.

So no Hollywood this time around? Unfortunately, no. Instead, detectives focused on finding phone records and other digital evidence to solidify their case. 8 months later, Ira once again was charged with criminal solicitation, tampering with evidence, and conspiracy. Were you at the sheriff's department when he came in? Yes. What's his demeanor, the look on his face?

It was just like it was another day for him. He didn't seem stressed at all.

His sister was charged with tampering with physical evidence, hindering prosecution, murder, extortion, and conspiracy. They both pleaded not guilty and were free to go. How did you find out that Ira was trying again— Yes. —to have Susan killed?

I mean, I still have a few friends in the force, in the police department, so everybody was reaching out.

What is your reaction when you hear that?

Was sad, and I really felt for Susan, trying the best that she can to raise the kids, Ira, as a selfish person, wants everything for himself.

Detective Braddock and the DA's office prepared for trial. Did they have enough evidence to send Ira Bernstein back to prison and keep him there? As law enforcement prepared for trial, they knew this case wasn't as clear-cut as the first time Ira got caught trying to have his wife murdered.

The recording was done by the landscaper himself, and it was a little bit difficult to hear at times. It wasn't the clearest.

What happens when the police talk to them?

Their case was built on those scratchy recordings and on what police learned from phone records. Any text messages that were of value to you? Yes.

There was a text message, I believe, to Ira where he tells him he has the recording. And there was definitely a text message to Ira's sister back and forth regarding the recording as well.

The detective says those texts backed up the landscaper's story that Ira and his sister Jacqueline wanted the recordings destroyed in exchange for giving him back control of the company. Jacqueline wrote, it's important to know that if he signs over the business Are you willing to do what you said earlier and get rid of the recording? So this is just further proof you're gathering?

Yes, this is something to substantiate.

Detective Braddock believed Ira and his sister would fight the charges.

I felt that he had already gone to prison once. More than likely, he wouldn't want to go back a second time, also because of his sister. Meaning? Because she had a lot to lose. She's an attorney. She hadn't lost anything. Yet, and this was big for her.

While both sides prepared for trial, two significant things happened. After a 7-year battle, Ira and Susan were finally divorced. And then Ira remarried. Who married him?

His girlfriend at the time of the investigation married him after he was arrested.

Now Ira was back in court, but not for a trial. He was ready to make a deal again. It was the summer of 2025, and Ira looked different. He appeared in court without his toupee.

He actually took his toupee off, I believe, when he went in prison the first time. Apparently, he went to the gym and started working out, so when he went to prison, he wouldn't be as big a target. And when he came out of prison, he never put the toupee back on.

Under this new agreement, Ira would plead guilty to tampering with evidence. In exchange, the conspiracy and solicitation charges would be dropped. But that didn't stop the prosecutor from getting Ira to own up to what he'd done. Do you also admit that the audio recording was in regards to a solicitation to have Susan Bernstein killed? Yes. Ira had to admit that the tampering with evidence was in connection to wanting his wife dead. Why was that important to the case?

Because even if he wasn't actually being charged with the solicitation, documentation. He needed to be held accountable that he was asking somebody to have his wife killed.

What would you say about doing this? In March of 2026, Ira arrived for his sentencing.

Screwed me on the first interview, why would I talk again?

What were you thinking? Why would you do this again? Do you have anything to say to Susan? All rise. The judge gave Susan a chance to say her piece, and again she requested not to be on camera. First, she went after Ira. He is a multimillionaire who hired top attorneys to weasel his way out of his violent and harsh crimes to get himself the best possible plea bargain deal. She even went after Ira's sister. Jacqueline failed to intervene and report him to law enforcement or warn me or my children. Similar to him, she has no soul. And used her wealth for a plea deal. My children and I live in a state of crisis. I thank God every night to the two men that he attempted to hire to have me killed. These men didn't know me but recognized his evil. Mr. Bernstein, go ahead. When it was Ira's turn to speak to Susan, he addressed Susan directly and denied asking anyone to harm her.

I never asked or solicited him to hurt you in any way. I never wanted to have you harmed, and I said no to him.

With that, the judge gave his ruling. You were hereby sentenced to an indeterminate term of 1.5 to 3 years in state prison. He also issued an order of protection for Susan and her 3 children until 2037. You are to have absolutely absolutely no contact or communication with any of these individuals. Do you understand that? Yes. As for Jacqueline, she agreed to an adjournment contemplating dismissal, which means her charges will be dropped if she steers clear of violating the law for 6 months. Is she able to practice law? Yes. Really? Ira and the landscaper sued each other in civil court. The case was dismissed dismissed. But the landscaper got his business back. He did. Ultimately, happy ending for him. Yes. With that, yes. Ira's legal troubles aren't over. It is a daily struggle for me and my 3 young children. Susan is currently suing the siblings for emotional distress. Years earlier, she spoke about how deeply the murder-for-hire plot affected her life.

It's a nightmare and awful and disgusting.

I think for a lot of people watching this, it's hard to imagine hating someone that much that you would want them killed not once, but possibly twice.

I think for Ira, it's all about winning, and it's all about money. His well-being and his comfort and happiness was more important than hers. It's all about Ira.

The defendant is remanded to the custody of the Department of Corrections Yes, thank you. He is expected to be let out of prison in 2029. And then Susan will be looking over her shoulder again.

I think Susan will always have to look over her shoulder, whether he's out of prison or not. She always needs to be careful.

Markenzie, the man who helped stop the hit on Susan the first time, says he will always have her back. She's a friend of yours now. Yeah, we meet.

We speak from time to time. Holidays, the kids, you know. Um, she's, she's a wonderful person. I would do it all over again for her, you know, for anybody.

That's all for this edition of Dateline, and don't forget to check out our Talking Dateline podcast, which will go behind the scenes of tonight's episode, available Wednesday in the Dateline feed wherever you get your your podcasts. We'll see you again next Friday at 9, 8 Central. I'm Lester Holt. For all of us at NBC News, good night.