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The mother of the man who tortured and killed Karen Chetcuti will be released from jail after a judge ruled she had served enough time over a plot to kill a witness in her son's murder trial.
Maria Cardamone was sentenced in the County Court for attempting to pervert the course of justice, for her part in her son's plot to have the witness killed and framed for the murder.
The 78-year-old woman was arrested in May after handing over $9,000 to an undercover policeman, who Michael Cardamone believed was a hit man.
Michael Cardamone, 50, was sentenced to life without parole for the brutal torture and murder of his regional Whorouly neighbour, with a Supreme Court justice describing the January 2016 killing as "extraordinarily vicious".
Ms Chetcuti was sedated with horse tranquilliser, bound with rope and duct tape, injected with battery acid and bashed before finally being doused in petrol and burned to death.
The mother of two's body was found near Lake Buffalo five days after she went missing.
After Michael Cardamone's arrest, he accused a friend of killing Ms Chetcuti, and later tried to arrange a hit man to murder and frame him.
His mother Maria Cardamone was told to give an undercover agent, posing as a hit man, part payment for the hit before she too was arrested.
She was jailed for 140 days, which is the amount of time she has served, meaning she will be released immediately.
Judge Gerard Mullaly said Maria Cardamone was wrong to trust her son.
"Michael Cardamone had to have a way to get the money to the hit man," he said.
The Crown did not allege the woman knew her son's plan was to kill the witness, but she understood the result of the payment was to throw off police.
"You were quite vulnerable to his manipulative efforts," Judge Mullaly said.
Michael Cardamone repeatedly lied to detectives about his involvement in Ms Chetcuti's murder and had attempted to blame the witness for her death.
When he was sentenced, his actions were described by Justice Lex Lasry as "depraved and disgusting".
Michael Cardamone was on parole for raping a 15-year-old girl at the time of the murder, which the court previously heard was motivated by his "sexual interest" in Ms Chetcuti.
He became the first person in Victoria without a prior murder conviction to receive a life sentence without parole after pleading guilty.
AAP/ABC
Topics: courts-and-trials, law-crime-and-justice, wangaratta-3677, melbourne-3000, vic