Secret recordings expose alleged murder plot by model's estranged husband

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- They were a Los Angeles power couple - smart, beautiful, successful. But suddenly, their relationship went into a tailspin. Now, one is in jail for attempted murder.

It is a sad story of how a once wonderful relationship can go tragically wrong. In this Eyewitness News exclusive, we have obtained what prosecutors call the key piece of evidence: an audio tape of the husband allegedly trying to hire a hit man to kill his model wife.

Monica Olsen once walked the runway for top designers, was the inspiration for a crime fighting comic book heroine, an actress, and now a skin care guru. Her husband Dino Guglielmelli made millions from dietary supplements. He even sang in a rock band.

The couple married in 2004. Together they had it all -- celebrity, money and a palatial estate in Canyon Country. But their seemingly perfect lives were so far from that.

The secret recording obtained exclusively by Eyewitness News tells us a much darker story. The Los Angeles district attorney says the tape, from Oct. 1, captures Guglielmelli trying to convince his friend, Richard Furhmann, to arrange his wife's murder. Little did Guglielmelli know, his friend was wearing a wire.

The husband and wife had been locked in a bitter divorce battle, fighting over money and custody of their children. The model was even arrested once for physically attacking her husband.

Prosecutors say it drove Guglielmelli to only want one thing.

"When she went into her deposition and lied and said that I scratched myself and set her up and that she never touched me and all of those scratches came from me going to the bathroom and scratching myself -- she looked me straight in the eyes and said that -- that's when I knew that I wanted her dead," Guglielmelli is heard saying on the tape.

Guglielmelli's attorney, Anthony Brooklier, says his client "was manipulated."

"I think that when you hear the tapes or the jury hears the tapes, they're going to understand that he was manipulated by somebody who was trying to help himself," Brooklier said of Furhmann. "That's the agent provocateur who's talking. He does all the talking. He's the one who is, in my view, soliciting. He's the one that brings it up."

"I'll ask you a simple question. You're positive?" Furhmann asks on the tape.

"That what?" Guglielmelli replies.

"You want her dead...100 percent?" Furhmann says.

"Why wouldn't I?" Guglielmelli says.

"Why wouldn't you? Good question," Furhmann says.

Olsen's spokesperson says Olsen now fears for her life, saying, "She has been living scared for a long time and just wants this nightmare to end." Olsen is said to be trying to re-launch her skincare line.

Guglielmelli is now broke. Since being arrested last October, he's lost his company and filed for bankruptcy. He's been sitting in a jail cell since October, unable to pay his $10 million bail, awaiting trial for attempted murder.

On the tape, Guglielmelli asks, "Are you telling me it's going to be done today? Are you serious?"

Furhmann: "Yes, when I leave this room."

Guglielmelli: "I don't want, I don't want to know anything."

Furhmann: "There you go. I'm not going to tell you anything."

Guglielmelli: "I'll read about it in the paper."

Furhmann: "Yes you will."

Guglielmelli will likely go to trial in early June. He faces seven years to life in prison if convicted.