A California biotech tycoon has been discovered responsible of orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot to kill a father of six and former enterprise associate after their oil deal collapsed.
Serhat Gumrukcu, 42, of Los Angeles, faces a compulsory life sentence for the 2018 abduction and killing of Gregory Davis, who was taken from his Vermont dwelling and located shot lifeless on the base of a snowbank, in line with the US Lawyer’s Workplace.
Gumrukcu, the founding father of Enochian Biosciences, was discovered responsible of hatching the lethal plot after Davis — a father of six whose spouse was pregnant with their seventh baby — threatened to sue him over a soured oil deal.
Prosecutors stated the biotech tycoon recruited his good friend, Berk Eratay, 38, who then used a second middleman, Aron Ethridge, 45, to rent hitman Jerry Banks, 37.
On Jan. 6, 2018, Banks, 37, arrived at Davis’ dwelling in a automobile fitted with flashing purple and blue lights, posing as a Deputy US Marshal and telling the unsuspecting father of six he wanted to return in for questioning.
Banks then kidnapped Davis from his Danville dwelling and murdered him, prosecutors stated.
Davis’s physique was found in a snowbank a brief distance from his dwelling in Barnet, Vermont, on Jan. 7, 2018.
Following his homicide, “investigators rapidly found emails and messaging indicating the stress between Gumrukcu and Davis over the failed oil deal, leading to Gumrukcu being interviewed twice by the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” prosecutors stated.
Investigators later found Gumrukcu had lied in every interview, however cellphone information, buy data, financial institution paperwork, emails, and messages in the end uncovered him and his co-conspirators’ roles in Davis’ kidnapping and homicide, in line with the US Lawyer’s Workplace.
Round 2017, Gumrukcu was brokering a multimillion-dollar biotech merger with Enochian Biosciences constructed round his purported HIV treatment — a high-stakes deal that prosecutors stated made silencing Davis all of the extra pressing.
Prosecutors stated Davis’s risk to take authorized motion over their failed oil transaction might have jeopardized Gumrukcu’s bid to achieve management of Enochian Biosciences.
Gumrukcu’s downfall got here in Could 2022, when he was arrested and brought into custody. He was convicted in April of murder-for-hire, conspiracy, and wire fraud.
“Serhat Gumrukcu tried to cover his function within the homicide of Greg Davis by paying one man to pay one other man to pay the hitman, who shot and killed Greg Davis on a January night time in Vermont,” said Appearing United States Lawyer Michael P. Drescher.
“Uncovering Gumrukcu’s accountability for this homicide concerned years of decided investigation by the women and men of Vermont’s United States Lawyer’s Workplace, working intently with the FBI and the Vermont State Police.”
Banks and Ethridge had been arrested in April 2022. Eratay was arrested in Could.
Banks was sentenced to 200 months in jail, adopted by 5 years of supervised launch, and Eratay acquired a sentence of 110 months in jail, adopted by three years of supervised launch.
Ethridge was sentenced to 140 months in jail adopted by 5 years of supervised launch.
Final month, Davis’s widow, Melissa, slammed Gumrukcu in court docket for shattering the lives of her and her seven kids by killing her husband, Vtdigger reported.
“I stand right here at present not solely as a widow, however because the mom of seven kids whose lives had been shattered the night time Gregg was taken from us,” she advised Gumrukcu throughout a Sept. 25 court docket look.
“You thought you may silence my husband, however your lies die right here on this courtroom.”
Throughout that very same court docket look, Gumrukcu had his sentencing pushed to November.
He’s staring down a compulsory life sentence.
