one of the most salacious political scandals in recent New Jersey history seemingly came to an end yesterday when former political operative Sean cattle was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison for organizing a murder-for-hire scheme that killed his friend and former colleague Michael galdari cattle had been treated with leniency by federal investigators after his cooperation delivered a tax fraud conviction against another Garden State political but many observers had speculated that more high-profile cases could be on the way so far that hasn't happened Nancy Solomon who covers New Jersey for WNYC and has been following the case was in the courtroom yesterday for cattle sentencing she spoke with Brianna vannozzi about what went down Nancy Solomon it is really good to have you here let me ask you first did we learn anything more about Sean cattle's motivation in this case because a lot of it has been shrouded in some mystery we'll say up until this yes we did so it came out first in the sentencing memo that reporters were getting their hands on in the last couple of days and then it was discussed in court today that uh so Michael galdieri the victim uh who had a had drug issues had been been given money by Sean cattle they were friends and they had worked together and apparently galdiri had told cattle that he needed more money and that if gulderi didn't give him more money he would expose you know criminal activity that you know we now know about which is that cattle was skimming money off of campaign funds for him and another political operative or staff person to several politicians and you know that's the case that came out later and that seemingly was enough to order a Hitman to kill his former friend and colleague I mean you know some things just don't make sense yeah and the judge wasn't buying it let's say that I mean yeah what was the judge's judge saying in this case right so Federal prosecutors asked for a 12-year sentence the normal sentence in this case would be life in prison because cattle had cooperated with Federal prosecutors on so-called political corruption case although turned into more of just a criminal case they had agreed to a plea deal that was arranged from uh 12 to 25 years was part of the plea agreement so the prosecutor came in and said you know he was very good with us he told us the truth we couldn't have made the case against Antonio Tashara the guy that eventually pled guilty without his Corporation so we're asking for 15 years but the judge gave him 24. yeah what did that say about this because Sean cattle is someone as a political consultant who knew people in high places will say he had a lot of political connections and there seemed to be this Heir that perhaps his knowledge would bring down some other like you know really big Power wielding folks in the political realm here in New Jersey and so far as you mentioned it's only resulted in a case against Tony Tashara who was the former Chief of Staff to uh now Senate President Nick scutari as well as being tied to Senator Menendez yes so I've talked to lots of lawyers and lots of people involved in politics in New Jersey there is one opinion really and that is that more was expected out of Sean cattle's Corporation of course it was all based on speculation it was based on the idea that here's a guy who put out a hit and paid two uh you know two thugs to murder a friend of his and he was home he wasn't even in jail awaiting sentencing he was at home it was lenient they were pretty lenient on him so the and you know the belief and the thought was is that wow he's going to bring down some pretty big name politicians if he's getting this kind of treatment um and you know the prosecutor today said this was an important case they got a man who was very powerful in Antonio Tashara but I think do we expect another shoe to drop here the prosecutor said the case is over I asked Sean cattle's defense attorney at Jacobs if that could possibly be the case of Truth and he said well prosecutors can be very Wily and you know they might not want to say that they have more coming but you didn't get the impression listening to the prosecutor at all that there's anything more coming than this conviction of tachera Nancy Soloman WNYC thank you so much thanks for having me [Music] [Music]