Former Spokane doctor pleads guilty after hiring hitmen to assault colleague, kidnap estranged wife

A former Spokane neonatologist pleaded guilty Wednesday to transmitting threats in interstate commerce for his role in a scheme to hire hitmen from the internet to kidnap his estranged wife and assault a former colleague, U.S. Attorney Vanessa Waldref announced.

According to court documents, Ronald Ilg, 55, sent dozens of messages in early 2021 through the internet as part of a plot to hurt a former colleague and have his estranged wife kidnapped.

Ilg used the moniker “Scar215″ to hide his identity and sent more than $60,000 in Bitcoin for the scheme.

Ilg directed the hitmen to assault another Spokane-area doctor, with specific directions that the victim “should be given a significant beating that is obvious. It should injure both hands significantly or break the hands.”

Ilg paid more than $2,000 in Bitcoin in this scheme, sent the hitmen the victim’s address, and gave the hitmen a link to the victim’s picture.

In later messages, Ilg asked to see evidence that the beating happened and suggested that he had “another, more complicated job” for the hitmen if this one went well.

Regarding the second victim, Ilg solicited hitmen to kidnap his estranged wife and have her injected with heroin in an effort to get her to drop divorce proceedings that were pending at the time.

Ilg even devised a structure where he gave bonuses to the hitmen if they actually kidnapped the woman and achieved certain “goals.”

After the FBI got copies of Ilg’s messages, he falsely claimed in an interview that he hired the hitmen to kill himself.

Later, Ilg sent a letter to a key witness against him, begging her to marry him so he could control whether she testified. He also offered to pay tuition for the woman’s child to attend Gonzaga Preparatory School and St. Aloysius Catholic School in Spokane.

Ilg faces a statutory maximum of 10 years in prison plus up to three years supervised release. As part of the plea agreement, Ilg will serve between 60 and 96 months.

He is scheduled to be sentenced Nov. 8.

“This case demonstrates how violent offenders exploit cyberspace and cryptocurrency to further their criminal agendas,” Waldref stated. “Mr. Ilg solicited and paid for multiple dark web hitmen to target the two victims in this case. Mr. Ilg also wanted to target additional victims if the hitmen followed through with the plan to harm these first two victims.”