A staffer hired by the campaign for Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake once admitted to participating in a murder-for-hire plot against an FBI informant involved in a heroin distribution case, according to a recent report at Raw Story.
Kenneth Ulibarri was hired by the Lake Campaign sometime over the summer to oversee Latino engagement. However, while the Lake Campaign has confirmed he was hired, it is not clear if the campaign was aware of Ulibarri’s criminal past at the time they brought him on board.
Ulibarri was charged by the Justice Department in 2014 for allegedly attempting to murder an FBI confidential informant to prevent the informant from testifying at a trial involving Ulibarri and several others on money laundering and cocaine distribution. Ulibarri was also charged with heroin distribution.
In his plea agreement, Ulibarri admitted to telling one confidential source that he and some others would be hiring a hitman to kill another source but said the threat was false and that he only made it for money.
Ultimately, Ulibarri pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice and heroin distribution and was sentenced to time served and three years of supervised release.
Raw Story also reported that Ulibarri has a long criminal history. In 2006, he was charged in a drug case in New Mexico. In 2014, he was charged with a DUI. And in 2002, he was sentenced to six years on multiple charges involving vehicle theft and criminal damage.
Three years ago, Ulibarri pleaded guilty to battery on a peace officer related to a 2014 incident.
Kari Lake has been consistently polling ahead of her Democrat challenger, Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
With Hobbs flatly refusing to debate Lake, it is unsurprising that the corporate news media is using the final weeks before the election to drag Lake down in the polls with stories like these.
The truth is, Katie Hobbs is a dreadful candidate. And the only hope she has of winning is to rely on the news media to drag her opponent through the mud.
