Long Island man sentenced in hit plot

A Long Island man was sentenced to 8 to 16 years in prison Monday for trying to hire a hit man to kill a witness against him in a mortgage fraud case.

Aaron Hand, 40, formerly of Oyster Bay Cove, will serve the sentence after he completes an 8-1/3 to 25 year sentence he is currently serving for a 2010 conviction in a $100 million mortgage scam.

Hand tried to hire a contract killer, who was an undercover agent, while he was doing time at Coxsackie Correctional Facility upstate on the earlier case.

Prosecutors dropped attempted murder charges, which could have carried up to life in prison, as part of his plea bargain. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy late last month in Manhattan Supreme Court. Monday's sentence tracked the terms of his plea deal.