A second person has entered a plea in connection to the 2017 beating death of Phillip Madlock over a drug debt.
Dominic Aguirre, who had been set to go to trial in February, showed up at a docket call Friday and pleaded guilty to first-degree assault and attempted kidnapping.
In exchange for his plea, prosecutors amended the charge from second-degree murder, which could have gotten him a life sentence, and dropped a separate drug delivery case.
Now, the 37-year-old Lincoln man will face up to 50 years on each of the counts at his sentencing next month.
Lancaster County District Judge Kevin McManaman earlier sentenced Aguirre's co-defendant, Paul Clark, to 60 to 80 years in prison on charges of first-degree assault and use of a deadly weapon to commit a felony.
Clark, 36, had pleaded no contest but put the blame on Aguirre at his sentencing hearing in October.
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Deputy Lancaster County Attorney Jan Lipovsky said then if it was not for Clark’s business, “we would not be here.â€
She said Clark had a marijuana farm in California and was using Aguirre to sell it in Nebraska. Investigators learned Madlock had ripped off Aguirre, not paying him for drugs he had fronted him, and Clark wanted the money back.
Police arrested them both in January 2018, alleging they had been looking for Madlock over a drug debt, found him at a friend’s house in Lincoln on June 28, 2017, and severely assaulted him there and elsewhere as they moved him.
Investigators believe Madlock died from his wounds as they transported him.
Confidential informants told police the body of a missing Lincoln man was burned in a barrel on a farm near Ashland, according to court records unsealed in December.
Madlock originally was reported missing. But in December 2017, a relative told police Aguirre and Clark had been offering a reward to anyone who knew where Madlock was. Over the next two months, police opened a drug investigation and later arrested Clark and Aguirre after learning they’d killed him over a drug debt.