Social media star sentenced to 10 years in prison for hiring couple to murder ex-boyfriend and internet rival

Influencer Ashley Grayson has been handed a 10 years prison sentence for her plot to hire others to carry out the murders two years ago.

The 35-year-old asked a woman from Memphis, who she had worked with before, to fly to Dallas, Texas, to discuss a “business opportunity” in August 2022.

The next month the woman and her husband, neither of whom have been named, flew to Dallas in to meet with Grayson and her husband, who has also not been named. The pair asked the couple to kill Grayson’s ex-boyfriend, an internet rival, and a woman who had also criticized her online. Grayson’s husband was also arrested in connection with the incident, but he was acquitted.

Grayson’s tension with her internet rival, who was also not identified but lives Mississippi, began in 2021 after she started an online business that was similar to Grayson’s.

Grayson offered the couple $20,000 (around £16,000) for each murder. On September 10 2022, the woman Grayson had hired, who was pretending to go along with the plan, recorded a video call in which the influencer told her that she wanted her internet rival killed immediately. She was even offered an extra $5,000 (around £12,000) for the killing to be carried out within a week.

The couple later sent Grayson a video of police lights from an unrelated incident but claimed they tried to carry out the murder but got caught. They later met with Grayson and were given $10,000 (around £8,000) for their “attempt,” prosecutors said.

In July 2023, a grand jury indicted Grayson and her husband for the murder-for-hire plot. Though her husband was acquitted, Grayson was found guilty. Last month, she was sentenced to the maximum penalty and received 10 years in prison. Once she has served her sentence, she’ll have three years of supervised release. Since her case was federal, she will not be eligible for parole.

Attorney Reagan Fondren said in a statement that although it was fortunate nobody was hurt, the case was the result of a “senseless rivalry”.

Their full statement read: “This was a twenty-first century crime where online feuds and senseless rivalries bled into the real world. The defendant tried to hire someone to murder a woman over things that happened exclusively on the internet.

“Fortunately, no one was physically hurt in this case, but the victim and her family still felt a severe and emotional impact as the result of the defendant’s actions. The proactive response from the investigating agencies and our prosecutors prevented an even more serious crime from occurring.”