A Los Angeles Police Department officer was questioned by detectives investigating the Woodland Hills murder of noted hairdresser Fabio Sementilli, who was killed inside his home in January.
The officer, who works at the LAPD's Topanga Station in the West San Fernando Valley, was confronted after cellphone records showed he was in close contact with the man arrested and charged with the murder, according to LAPD officials who said they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.
The man charged, Robert Louis Baker, 55, became friendly with the officer after the two played racquetball at a health club in Woodland Hills, the same club in which Baker reportedly met Semintilli's wife.
The officer was cleared of wrongdoing and the officials requested KFI NEWS withhold the officer’s name from publication.
Fabio Sementilli was found dead inside his home on Queen Victoria Road January 23.
He’d been stabbed to death.
LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detectives said earlier this year they learned Sementilli’s wife Monica, 45, had begun an extramarital affair with Baker, and investigators said they believed the two plotted the murder together in order to cash-in Sementilli’s $1.6-million life insurance policy.
Baker and Sementilli were arrested in June, days after Monica Sementilli returned from a banquet in Canada where she accepted a lifetime recognition award for her dead husband.
Baker is a convicted felon and registered sex offender, who spent time in prison for raping his underage teen stepdaughter, according to police and court records.
The LAPD said in June security video from Sementilli's neighborhood showed two men jogging towards the home on the afternoon of the murder.
DNA evidence tied Baker to the murder scene, detectives said, but as of this week the second man who participated in the stabbing has not been identified.
Baker and Sementilli were scheduled to appear in court Friday.