Jesse Grant
Fereidoun “Prince Fred” Khalilian, a former Florida nightclub owner and business partner of Paris Hilton, allegedly attempted to bribe a witness who was due to testify in a murder-for-hire case against him, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Beast.
Khalilian, who opened Club Paris in Orlando 2005, is charged with “murder-for-hire,” for allegedly offering to pay Michael Sherwood, his former bodyguard, to carry out a hit on J. Esco, a documentary filmmaker he believed was working on an unflattering film about him.
But Sherwood and Esco turned the plot back on Khalilian, faking a murder scene and sending him staged photographs, according to the original complaint against him. Khalilian fell for it, sending thousands of dollars in payment to the fake hitman, the FBI says, who by then was working with federal agents to bring Khalilian down.