Woman was having affair but didn’t plot husband’s Woodland Hills killing, her lawyer says

By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH

A defense attorney acknowledged this week that her client had been involved in an extramarital affair but told jurors that she was not involved in any plot with her lover to kill her husband at the couple’s Woodland Hills home.

Monica Sementilli, now 53, is charged with murder and conspiracy in connection with the stabbing death of her 49-year-old husband, a Canadian celebrity hairstylist-turned-Wella company executive, in their back yard on Jan. 23, 2017, shortly before the couple was set to celebrate a 20th wedding anniversary.

The murder charges include the special circumstances of murder for financial gain and murder while lying in wait.

Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman told jurors during her opening statement that Sementilli “destroyed her family” and “was willing to risk everything for (her lover) Robert Baker and some money,” while defense lawyer Blair Berk said that the evidence will show that the charges are not true.

Baker, now 62, pleaded no contest in July 2023 to first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole — the same sentence that Sementilli could face if she is convicted as charged.

A third defendant, Christopher Austin, arrested late last year following a lengthy investigation by Los Angeles police, pleaded guilty earlier this month to second-degree murder. Now 39 years old, he agreed to testify in exchange for a 16-year-to-life state prison term.

Sementilli’s attorney told jurors in her opening statement that her client was having a sexual relationship with Baker without the knowledge of her husband. She said Sementilli probably made the “most fatal mistake of her life” when she entered into the extramarital affair after meeting Baker at a gym where the former military policeman — who Berk described as “charming (and) manipulative” —coached racquetball.

But the defense attorney said Baker decided to take things into his own hands and kill Sementilli’s husband without any involvement from her after she made it clear that she had no interest in leaving her husband.

“To have an affair has nothing to do with wanting her husband dead,” Berk said, telling jurors that Baker started to “formulate a plan to kill Monica’s husband.”

She described Sementilli and her husband as “each other’s best friends.”

Berk said there was “no financial motive” for Sementilli to want her husband dead, saying that she was not the sole beneficiary on the life insurance policy her husband had through his employer.

Sementilli’s lawyer described her client as facing “real devastation” when her husband was killed, and told jurors that her client “sought comfort” from Baker while having “no idea that Robert Baker had done the awful thing that he did.”

The Los Angeles Police Department quickly learned that Baker’s blood had been found inside the family’s home after the killing and that he was having an affair with Sementilli, prompting surveillance units to follow them and detectives to “set all of their sights” on her, defense lawyer Berk told jurors.

The prosecutor told jurors that Sementilli was the “mastermind” behind her husband’s killing and was the only one who knew the narrow time frame when he would be alone at the family’s home.

The woman sent hundreds of naked photos of herself to Baker during their affair, in which they were “also swinging with other people” while she was simultaneously “living two lives,” according to Silverman.

The defendant let her 16-year-old daughter return home first, where the teenager discovered her father’s bloody body and made a frantic 911 call, while the victim’s wife tried to distance herself from the killing, the deputy district attorney said.

‘The prosecutor showed the jury a photo of Sementilli’s “own words written in lipstick” on a mirror — “Mrs. Baker,” and said the defendant also used “Mrs. Baker” in several jailhouse letters she subsequently wrote to her co-defendant while behind bars.

“She and Baker decided Fabio was getting in the way,” the prosecutor said, explaining that financial gain was one of the motives.

Sementilli’s attorney countered that the evidence would show that it was “impossible for Monica Sementilli to have orchestrated the murder of her husband.”

Sementilli and Baker were arrested by Los Angeles police in June 2017 and charged with murdering her husband. The two were indicted just over two months later and have remained behind bars.