INDIANAPOLIS — He was already serving two life sentences, and the judge made it clear — he still deserved no leniency.
Mark Leonard, 47, was sentenced to another 50 years in prison today for conspiracy to commit murder. He is serving two life sentences without parole for his role in the Richmond Hill case, where he blew up his ex-girlfriend’s home in the Richmond Hill neighborhood in Indianapolis to collect $300,000 in insurance money to pay off gambling and credit card debt. The explosion he planned tore through the neighborhood, killing an elementary school teacher and her husband and damaging more than 80 homes on the southeast side of Indianapolis in 2012.
The sentence Wednesday came from Leonard’s effort to have one of his friends, who was a witness against him in the Richmond Hill case, killed while Leonard was in prison and awaiting trial in early March 2014.
To avoid the threat of his friend’s looming testimony, Leonard contacted a person he thought was a hit man and offered to compensate him with $15,000 for the murder, which Leonard wanted to look convincingly like a suicide.
Leonard drew a map to his friend’s house and gave intimate details about his habits and lifestyle. He wanted the hit man to be forced to confess, thus exonerating Leonard, or to be killed. He told the hit man to threaten the man’s family. He also offered the hit man an additional $5,000 if he called the police and discredit the witnesses.
As it turned out, the person Leonard thought was a hit man was actually an undercover agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Leonard was at ease in court Wednesday morning. He ambled into the courtroom in a scarlet jumpsuit while clutching a manila envelope of case paperwork against his chest. He sat beside his legal counsel and whispered occasionally to ask questions.
The only time Leonard spoke at length to the judge was to complain about not getting to confront a witness who declined to testify in his trial and to request a copy of a document from his case file. As he wrestled the document into his thick manila envelope, his chains clanked against the desk.
While his public defender, Victoria Bailey , argued Leonard should be allowed to serve this new sentence concurrently with his other ones, Leonard stared at the desk and pressed his fingers together.
During the sentencing hearing, Judge Sheila Carlisle focused on Leonard’s history with the law. Although Judge Carlisle had been involved with the Richmond Hill case since the beginning, she’d never been the one to sentence Leonard.
As the case that had plaugued her docket for more than three years seemed to draw to a close, Carlisle stared down the defendant. She spent nearly ten minutes reading off his criminal history — dozens of charges and convictions, which began when he was only 17 and punctuated his entire adult life.
1995. Battery. Disorderly conduct. Resisting law enforcement. Public intoxication.
1997. Possesion.
2001. Operating vehicle while intoxicated. Domestic battery. Public intoxication again.
Judge Carlisle read off the charges in a monotone and glanced up from beneath her glasses at Leonard when she flipped the pages and kept reading.
2002. Stalking. Criminal mischief. Operating vehicle while intoxicated again.
2003. Fraud.
2004. Fraud again.
2007. Strangulation. Criminal confinement. Intimidation. Battery again.
The clock ticked onward and the charges and convictions kept coming. The further the judge read, the graver they became. She ended with the Richmond Hill case.
2012. Murder. Murder. Insurance fraud. More than 50 counts of arson.
Judge Carlisle shuffled the papers back into place, looked at Leonard and pointed out all the chances — dismissed charges, suspended sentences, probation, rehabilitation for substance abuse — he’d had to pull himself together.
None appeared to have remotely affected Leonard, Carlisle said.
“Despite all his experiences, the defendant repeated the same behavior,” Carlisle said. “His crimes were getting more serious and ultimately more violent.”
She said Leonard had been incarcerated when he’d tried to have his friend of 20 years killed and he’d used the information from their friendship to try to bring about his death.
“He has not expressed remorse for any of these offenses,” Carlisle said.
Nor did he, even now. As Carlisle delivered his sentence, Leonard was unfazed. He only spoke once more, when Carlisle asked if he would like to appeal his sentence as he’d done with the other sentences stemming from the Richmond Hill case.
“Yes,” said Leonard, ensuring the case would drag on a little while longer before he walked out of the courtroom.
