From news services and staff reports
Saturday, February 5, 1994; Page B04

A Silver Spring woman who prosecutors said had been upset over a failed romance was sentenced yesterday to three years in prison for trying to hire a hit man last spring to shoot her ex-boyfriend, his wife and his son.

Lu Ming Virrey, 47, pleaded guilty Dec. 4 at the federal courthouse in Alexandria to planning a murder for hire. She admitted offering $10,000 to someone to shoot the ex-boyfriend in the legs and cripple him and to fatally shoot the man's wife and 30-year-old son.

Authorities said the plot unraveled when a stranger Virrey solicited last May near Dupont Circle went to the FBI to report the scheme. The FBI had an undercover agent pose as a hit man. When Virrey struck a deal with the agent, she was arrested.

Defense lawyers told U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema yesterday that Virrey was suffering from depression at the time of the plot against her former boyfriend.

The target of the attack, Gualberto Coronado, of McLean, said he had no idea that Virrey was upset with him. He was not harmed; neither was his wife, Joanna, whom he married after breaking up with Virrey, nor his son, Glenn.