‘Put me in coach’: Informant in N.J. Tinder murder-for-hire case was ‘rogue’ operative motivated by money, defense attorney says

When Jaclyn Diiorio told a man she met on Tinder she would pay thousands to have her Philadelphia cop ex-boyfriend and his teenage daughter killed, the would-be hitman told law enforcement about the plan, prosecutors say.

So when the woman met him in the parking lot of a Dollar General store in Gloucester Township and handed him a $500 payment for the $12,000 hit, prosecutors said, police waiting nearby quickly moved in and arrested her.

Diiorio, 27, of Runnemede, was charged with attempted murder and related crimes and has been in jail since pleading not guilty in April of last year in a case that made national headlines.

Now, her defense attorney says the would-be hitman is an unreliable police informant who shouldn’t be trusted, and the charges against her should be dropped.

In documents filed in Camden County Superior Court this week, Diiorio’s lawyer, Robert Gamburg, said the man she met on the dating app was a longtime confidential informant for the county sheriff’s office who was desperate for the cash authorities had paid him to implicate others in crimes for about a year.

Shortly before Diiorio was taken into custody, Gamburg said, the informant — whom The Inquirer is not identifying for safety reasons — told investigators in a recorded interview that he helped the woman hatch the plot to kill her ex, Matthew O’Hanlon, a 54-year-old veteran police officer, and his 19-year-old daughter.

“I got a girl who wants her bf killed” the informant first texted his sheriff’s office contact, according to the court filing, adding: “Cal [sic] me asap I’ve been talking to her.”

The attorney described the informant as a “rogue” operative whose phone calls and in-person conversations with Diiorio in the days before her arrest went “completely unsupervised.”

“The State has no idea what this desperate Informant told the defendant or suggested to the defendant to get her to allegedly agree to commit a crime,” Gamburg wrote in the filing.

Taken together, Gamburg said, the conduct amounts to entrapment.

A spokesperson for the Camden County Prosecutors Office, Jessica MacAulay, declined to comment on Gamburg’s assertions, except to say, “We look forward to addressing the motion in court.”

Prosecutors, meanwhile, say their case against Diiorio is strong.

Law enforcement officials say they have text messages in which Diiorio spoke to the informant of wanting to have her ex and his daughter killed.

And they said her overture to the Tinder match turned police informant was not the first time Diiorio tried to hire someone to have O’Hanlon killed. She had previously tried to hire people to commit the crime, prosecutors said, but was tricked when the would-be killers sent her “fake photos” as proof the hit had been carried out.

Diiorio, a hairdresser, met O’Hanlon while cutting his hair, authorities said. At the time of her arrest, the couple’s tumultuous relationship had recently ended.

In August 2024, after months of dating, prosecutors said, Diiorio filed for a restraining order against O’Hanlon that she later dropped. The following month, his home was damaged by a Molotov cocktail, prosecutors said.

O’Hanlon and a spokesperson for the Philadelphia Police Department did not immediately return a request for comment.

The informant Diiorio met on Tinder had a history of working with law enforcement to implicate others in crimes, Gamburg said in court documents.

In hundreds of text messages exchanged with his law enforcement handler between June 2024 to April 2025, the man displayed an eagerness to bring police incriminating information about drug deals and gun crimes in exchange for cash, Gamburg said.

“I’m trying every way possible to make money” the informant texted his sheriff’s office contact in 2024, according to the documents. “That’s why I always hit you up.”

Expressing his willingness to offer incriminating information, the informant texted in January 2025, “... I’m a [expletive] dog. I’m like the Eagles right now. Put me in coach. I’m ready to play quarterback.”

The informant was not always truthful, Gamburg contended, and should be viewed with skepticism.

He “made his living setting people up by providing information that was concocted and fabricated by him, in an effort to get money to buy narcotics,” the brief says.

Early last April, when the informant alerted law enforcement officials to his conversations with Diiorio, he texted “I got her set up so far I hope she tries she sounds desperately [sic].”

“He’s a Philly cop” he said of the target.

“I’ll get u paidddd if this turns out” his sheriff’s office contact replied in a text, according to the documents.

“What’s the pay gonna be for something like this I hope a new house worth lolol,” the informant continued, the documents say.

At one point, the sheriff’s office contact told the informant he was waiting to hear from a law enforcement colleague on how the investigation should proceed.

“Don’t set anything up man till i get word” the contact said, according to the documents.

As with other instances in which the informant approached law enforcement with unsolicited information, Gamburg wrote, the man was searching for a payment that would equate to the “hit of a lifetime.”

In another message included in the court filing, the informant wrote to his contact shortly before Diiorio’s arrest:

“Thanks bro for all u do for me man im sorry im such a pain i jus hope I can make this happen and make u proud of me man.”

Prosecutors have several weeks to respond to Gamburg’s arguments. Camden County Superior Court Judge Thomas Booth Jr. has scheduled a May 8 hearing.