Former Food Network celebrity chef Juan-Carlos Cruz has been sentenced to prison time in relation to his attempt to hire someone to kill his wife. INSIDE EDITION reports.
He was once a celebrity chef on the Food Network. Now he'll be eating prison food for the next nine years.
Juan-Carlos Cruz, known as the "Calorie Commando," pled no-contest to attempting to hire two homeless men to murder his wife.
He was given the maximum sentence, nine years in prison.
There have been reports that Cruz's wife is actually standing by her husband, but it didn't appear that way in court. She was seated in the front row and showed no emotion as her husband was sentenced to state prison. As he was led away by sheriff's deputies, he turned and briefly stared directly at his wife. She did not return his gaze.
Cruz's Calorie Commando show ran on the Food Network in 2006. He also wrote a best-selling cookbook.
Prosecutors say he cooked up the plot to murder his wife, 47-year-old Los Angeles attorney Jennifer Campbell, supposedly to put her out of her misery because she was despondent over their failure to have children after 20 years of marriage
Cruz approached two homeless men on the street in Santa Monica last May and offered them $1,000 to carry out the hit. Instead, they contacted police.
With good behavior, Cruz will be eligible for parole in four years.
