BERRIEN COUNTY WOMAN WHO HIRED HIT MAN CONVICTED AGAIN

By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
ST. JOSEPH – The woman has received the same sentence during a resentencing hearing late last month. The case had been remanded back for a resentencing after a Michigan Supreme Court ruling last fall.
Alana Gonzalez, now 63, formerly of Berrien Springs, ended up receiving the same 10 years to 40 years prison sentence she received in January 2022, after being after being remanded back after a September 2024, ruling by the Michigan Supreme Court. She was convicted in late 2021 of hiring a man to kill her ex-husband’s new girlfriend. The girlfriend, Bonita Levi, is now married to the ex-husband.
The Michigan Supreme Court ruled in September that Kalamazoo County Circuit Court Judge Pamela Lightvoet had erred in her original sentencing of Gonzalez. Judge Lightvoet presided over Friday’s resentencing hearing as well as over the 2021 trial after all Berrien County judges recused themselves as Elvin Gonzalez is the Berrien County Trial Court Family Division Administrator.
The high court said that Judge Lightvoet erred in basing her sentencing decision at least in part on Gonzalez’s refusal to admit guilt and her insistence on proceeding to trial rather than accepting a plea.
Gonzalez was represented by Maya Menlo from the State Appointed Public Defenders Office. The sollcitation of murder charge carries a maximum penalty of up to life in prison. Berrien County Assistant Prosecutor Kate Arnold said Gonzalez now has credit for 1,352 days served. She was ordered to pay $758 in fines and costs and $2,090 in restitution to the victim. Those were the same amounts levied in the first sentencing.
According to the Michigan Department of Corrections website, Gonzalez’s earliest release date is July 15, 2031. She is housed at the Huron Valley Complex/Women’s prison.
In her testimony at trial, Gonzalez denied telling the man she hired to kill anyone. She acknowledged that it was a “stupid decision” to keep talking to the man and to give him money. She said her frame of mind at the time was one of grief and anguish after the breakdown of her marriage.
“I was in a 180 degree different place, that’s why I felt shame and remorse,” she said during her trial. “… I was overwhelmed. I was making decisions then that I absolutely wouldn’t make today.”