Man Convicted in Murder for Hire Plot Wants Child Custody Time While in Federal Prison: GAL Tends to Agree
Venkatesh Bhogireddy became known the the Chicago area when details of his murder for hire plot got reported, but that's only the beginning of the story.
If you follow the Chicago news media closely, the name Venkatesh Bhogireddy will likely ring a bell for you.
He first became notorious when details of a murder for hire plot he’d been charged with became public in 2019.
The most detailed account came from a local Patch story; the story included an affidavit written by a Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agent.
In one of the strangest Will County civil forfeiture cases in weeks, a 42-year Chicago man is accused of paying someone to knock off his estranged wife's uncle in New Jersey. The uncle was to be pushed in front of a subway train to make his death look like an accident, a forfeiture complaint filed this week at the Will County Courthouse states.
Instead the plan was foiled and Venkatesh Bhogireddy has landed in federal custody facing a six-count indictment accusing him of orchestrating a murder-for-hire scheme crossing state lines.
This week, the Will County State's Attorney Office of Jim Glasgow determined the brown 2008 Infinity FX35 belonging to Bhogireddy should be a forfeited police asset; the defendant used his car with the intention of committing murder, the forfeiture complaint reads.
Venkatesh wanted to kill his ex-wife’s uncle, according to the affidavit, because he was supporting his ex-wife in their divorce.
Furthermore, though he wasn’t charged with it, Venkatesh expressed interest in also killing his ex-wife, but down the road. Below is part of the affidavit.
UC stands for Undercover. Venkatesh would go on to tell the UC that he wanted his ex-wife’s uncle killed for now and would revisit killing his ex-wife after the divorce was settled.
Venkatesh was convicted of this crime in 2021.
A jury found a Chicago man guilty of trying to solicit who he thought was a hit man in Joliet to kill his wife’s uncle in New Jersey.
On May 27, a jury found Venkatesh Bhogireddy, 43, guilty of five counts of soliciting his wife’s uncle’s murder on three days in 2019, including on Oct. 2, court records show. The jury found him not guilty of one count of the same offense on July 2, 2019.
The jury arrived at its verdict after a seven-day trial in federal court.
Bhogireddy is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 29.
While he was scheduled to be sentenced on October 29, that was postponed and no make up date has been set. I emailed the US Department of Justice for clarification but received no response.
The Clerk’s Office for the Federal District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, where his trial was held, told me the most recent filing was on April 11, 2022, asking for an extension; there is a status conference scheduled in June but no sentencing hearing has been scheduled.
Approximately a year prior to this murder for hire plot unfolding, Venkatesh was arrested by Chicago Police for violating a protective order and domestic battery (hitting his ex-wife).
Venkatesh’s ex-wife, Usha Karri and her uncle came to me because they say there’s a much larger story which has not been told.
They both insist that Venkatesh has largely been catered to by both the criminal and civil court system.
Usha provided me with several police reports: including making terroristic threats, theft, and even an allegation he raped her.
Despite this arrest, nothing ultimately came of this case. I reached to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office but received no response.
Kim Foxx, of Jussie Smollett infamy, is the current Cook County State’s Attorney.
Usha told me Venkatesh was released on bond the next day and the charges were dropped.
She says the US Attorney’s Office has blocked her from making a victim impact statement at Venkatesh’s sentencing and no one has told her how many years they think he might spend in prison.
Meanwhile, Venkatesh has been allowed to continue to wage a legal battle for custody of his two children, even while being convicted in this murder for hire plot.
There is one email which illustrates just how much the court caters to him. It was written in late 2021, after he’d been convicted, by Lynn Wypich, who had been appointed the guardian ad litem.
Even while in federal prison, the court caters by trying to arrange for custody time.
The email is an illustration of another dynamic I write about a lot in family court; the court identifies problems it then tries to solve by appointing a laundry list of people to charge hundreds of dollars hourly.
Here, Venkatesh is in federal prison but the court doesn’t think this should preclude him from seeing his children.
The first thing the court does is appoint Dr. Stephanie Bonza-Zeal to do a report to see if it’s a good idea.
Then, if the court thinks this is a good idea, they will do Zoom conferences with a monitor and charging $150 per session.
Meanwhile, the process is being slow walked; nothing will happen until at least Venkatesh is sentenced.
That does not preclude the court from holding hearing and accepting motions.
In fact, since 2018, according to the electronic court records, Venkatesh has filed numerous motions and the court has held all sorts of hearings.
Those who have dealt with a personality like Venkatesh will likely recognize this tactic; it’s a form of legal abuse.
It allows the lawyers and others to charge obscene amounts on an hourly basis. Below is part of the court record for just a few months in late 2021 and early 2022.
Usha told me she was tricked more than once. For instance, the court entered an agreed order on July 25, 2019, that she said she never agreed to. It granted Venkatesh unsupervised visits and ordered both into a slew of therapy.
I reached out to Wypich but received no response. I also reached out to Venkatesh’s divorce lawyer, Jami Bruzinski, but also received no response.
Gal Pissetsky represented Venkatesh in his criminal trial, but he told me he no longer represents him and directed me to his current lawyer, Tim Pugh, who did not respond to a voicemail for comment.
Usha tells me that she believes that Venkatesh’s behavior escalated because he was never held accountable in any meaningful way for his repeated abuse and theft.
She believes that his plan is to try and get custody of their children when he is released from jail and she worries that he may try and kill her as well.
It's all about the money. Question, is the child Protection Agency providing father's initiative services to the defendant? If so, there is a lot of Federal Grant Money involved. Easy targets, Children, Elderly and Animals.