WOODLAND HILLS—Robert Baker, 61, who is a former porn actor, pleaded no contest on Friday, July 7, in a Los Angeles Courtroom to the stabbing death of Fabio Sementilli, 49, who was a well-known Woodland Hills hairdresser. Baker was sentenced to life without parole for the crime.
According to prosecutors, Baker and his former lover who was Sementilli’s wife, Monica Sementilli, devised a plan to kill Fabio in order to collect more than $1 million in life insurance. Sementilli’s wife is still facing a murder charge which she has plead not guilty to. Her next court hearing is scheduled for July 14.
The hair executive was at his Woodland hills home alone the night the murder occurred back in 2017. Two people in hoodies entered his property and attacked Sementilli from behind. He received a total of seven stab wounds to the neck, chest and thigh.
Shortly after the murder occurred, both suspects entered the master bedroom and ransacked it. Baker went into the kitchen to wash off the victim’s blood and destroy evidence but left his blood behind. They took the DVR from the garage which held the home’s security footage before fleeing in Sementilli’s 2008 Porsche 911. The vehicle was found abandoned about fives away two days later.
At around 5 p.m. that day Sementilli’s youngest daughter Isabelle arrived at the property and found a bloody shoe prints and blood on the floor. She found her dad dead, slumped over on his chair. An autopsy report revealed that his femoral and carotid arteries were cut.
LAPD officials first believed his death was a result of a home invasion burglary. After five months after Sementill’s murder police arrested both Baker and Monica. They were charged with murder, with the special circumstance allegations of lying-in wait and financial gain. This made them eligible that if convicted they would face life without the possibility of parole.
The two were accused of “communication via cell phones and encrypted communication applications regarding their plan to kill victim Fabio Sementilli,” according to the indictment.
“Monica fully intended for Fabio to be murdered,” Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman previously claimed before a grand jury. “She wanted him out of the way because she wants to be with Robert Baker. She’s unhappy in her marriage, even though at the same time she’s acting like the loving, adoring wife.”
According to the indictment Monia subsequently called a Los Angeles Police department detective several times asking why her husband’s life insurance policy were being withheld.
Luigi, who is the victim’s son, made a statement in court regarding the possibility of dropping the special circumstances charge. “By dropping the special circumstances, justice is threatened. I will never get to speak to my father again. I will never get to experience his warmth, his love, his confidence, or his endless generosity. None of us will. We lost the patriarch of our family,” Luigi said.
Sementilli’s niece by marriage also spoke before the court, “I will never heal from this and there will never be closure for our family. There will always be an emptiness in the shape of Fabio that can never be filled.”
Sementilli was a father of three children. He was known to post motivational videos on social media and enjoyed cigars and tequila.
Many people throughout the hairstyling industry were shocked to hear of Sementilli’s murder.
By Christianne