A Dallas, Texas, woman who runs an online business was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison following her conviction in a murder-for-hire plot.
Ashley Grayson, 35, ran an internet-based business and gained notoriety from her online presence, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Western District of Tennessee.
Grayson described herself on her Instagram account as a bestseller, eight-figure business coach, course creator and philanthropist.
In 2021, Grayson had a falling out with a woman from Southaven, Mississippi, who had an online business similar to her own. This woman was the target of the murder-for-hire plot.
Grayson believed the woman had been creating fake online profiles that criticized her and her business, although the two women never met in person.
Then, in August 2022, Grayson asked a Memphis woman, whom she had worked with in the past, to fly to Dallas to discuss a "business opportunity."
The Memphis woman and her husband arrived in Dallas the following month and met with Grayson and her husband, Joshua.
Grayson offered to pay the Memphis couple to kill the Southaven woman, Grayson’s former boyfriend and a Texas woman who had recently made social media posts criticizing Grayson. She offered to pay at least $20,000 for each killing.
On Sept. 10, 2022, the Memphis woman recorded a video call in which Grayson confirmed that she wanted the Southaven woman killed as soon as possible and even offered an additional $5,000 for the killing to be finished in the next week.
The Memphis couple later sent Grayson a picture of police lights from an unrelated incident in Memphis to make it appear as if they had unsuccessfully attempted to carry out the killings. The couple demanded $10,000, or half of the promised amount, from Grayson. The Memphis couple then went to Dallas and met with Grayson and her husband and collected $10,000 from them for the "attempt."
In July 2023, a grand jury in Tennessee indicted Grayson and her husband for use of an interstate facility in commission of murder-for-hire. The case went to trial in March of this year, when a jury found Grayson guilty but acquitted her husband.
Last month, Grayson was sentenced to 120 months in prison, the maximum sentence permitted for her crime, and three years of supervised release. She will not be eligible for parole since this was a federal case.
"This was a twenty-first century crime where online feuds and senseless rivalries bled into the real world," Acting U.S. Attorney Reagan Fondren said in a statement. "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 statement continued. "The proactive response from the investigating agencies and our prosecutors prevented an even more serious crime from occurring."
