Saying that Joel Sandler remains “manipulative, controlling and very dangerous,“ Montgomery County Judge William T. Nicholas on Tuesday sentenced the Main Line multi-millionaire to 81 2 to 25 years in a state prison on charges he attempted to hire a hit man to murder his wife of 28 years.
“At long last, I feel my children and I are safe and we, as a family, can go on with our lives after this terrifying ordeal,“ said Linda Sandler, who has been living in undisclosed locations in the western part of the country since police first alerted her to her husband‘s intentions in March 2001.
County prosecutor Sean E. Cullen said it was likely that Sandler, a 52-year-old former securities broker from Bryn Mawr, will serve some 20 years in prison before being paroled.
Cullen, who does not believe that Sandler can be rehabilitated, said that with Sander‘s behavior in prison, including assaultive acts, racial and sexual slurs, Sandler could serve all 25 years of his sentence.
Sandler, seeking leniency, read from a statement he had written prior to his sentencing hearing. Not once did he express remorse for his crime or tell his estranged wife he was sorry.
“It is sad to say but the only tangible proof of my remorse (and the only proof that carries any weight) I can offer to my family is financial atonement,“ said Sandler, stating that he has agreed to give his estranged wife more than 75 percent of the couple‘s estimated $7 million in marital assets and to help pay the estimated $100,000 in medical expenses incurred by the couple‘s daughter, who is being treated for an eating disorder and post-traumatic stress brought on by the incident.
Sandler was arrested April 26, 2001, on charges he attempted to solicit a hit man to murder his estranged wife after she filed for a divorce to end the bouts of physical and mental abuse that she and her children received at Sandler‘s hands.
The hit man who he negotiated with was an undercover Montgomery County detective who was used after authorities were tipped that Sandler was looking for a hit man.
Sandler negotiated $25,000 for the hit and even requested that the body of the victim – whom he did not identify at the time – be moved and burned or destroyed in a manner that could not be traced back to him.
However, before any money was exchanged, Sander indicated he had reservations about the so-called hit man, speculating that he might be a law enforcement officer.
Fearing that Sandler might look elsewhere for a hit man, authorities arrested him at that time on charges of solicitation to commit murder and criminal use of the telephone.
The motive behind the solicitation, authorities said, was Sandler‘s desire to keep his wife from getting more than half of the couple‘s estimated $7 million in marital assets and to end the possibility of him having to give a deposition about his finances in their divorce proceedings. The deposition could have left him vulnerable to possible federal, civil and criminal tax evasion penalties, authorities said.
Sandler initially pleaded no contest to the charges but withdrew that plea. He went to trial on the charges in January and was convicted by a jury on all but one of the telephone charges.
Nicholas, who also fined Sandler $40,000, sentenced Sandler in the aggravated range.
Sandler, who asked the judge to give him an opportunity to change “the patterns in my life,“ glared at his estranged wife while being escorted out of the courtroom by deputies following his sentencing.
