As I Lay Dying’s Tim Lambesis freed from jail after serving two years of six-year sentence

He attempted to hire a hitman to kill his wife

Tim Lambesis
Published 10th Feb 2017

As I Lay Dying frontman Tim Lambesis has been released from prison after serving two-and-a-half years of a six-year sentence for plotting to have his wife murdered.

The fallen rock star was jailed without probation by Judge Carlos Armour in San Diego’s Superior Court in May 2014. Lambesis paid a ‘hitman’ – really an undercover policeman - $1,000 and gave him his wife’s home address and security gate codes.

According to information procured by Alternative Press from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Lambesis was discharged from his detention facility just in time for Christmas on 17th December 2016 and transferred to the Division of Adult Parole Operations.

In an interview with Blabbermouth, ex-Dokken guitarist George Lynch whose daughter was engaged to As I Lay guitarist Dying Nick Hipa, slammed Lambesis’ release saying he now has “everything lined up for him” and will “skate through life” while “his wife is living in fear.”

Reflecting upon the religious conversations he had with Lambesis, Lynch said: "(Lambesis) is a Biola-trained theologian. The guy's really super bright. He had an IQ of 160; the guy had a brain like a freaking vice.

"I had every freaking argument out there, and he just was able to really kind of battle every argument, 'cause he had every counter-argument prepared in his mind; he had studied so hard.”

He continued: "Anyways, he just got out of jail for attempting to kill his wife. Now I'm not saying this as an indictment against anything. All I'm saying is, there is a guy who could argue Christianity beyond anybody I've ever spoken to in my life; I had these very heated debates with this guy… He had a beautiful wife; they had adopted three Cambodian children. And then he discovered cocaine, strippers, heroin and steroids. He went completely off the rails, abandoned his family, his wife threatened to divorce him, he hired an off-duty cop to kill her.

"He recently got out of jail. He destroyed his band. They don't have a pot to piss in now; they're all struggling. (As I Lay Dying are) a great band. I know them very well because, actually, the guitar player was my daughter's fiancé. And, actually, the drummer (Jordan Mancino) played in another project I had ways back, Souls of We.

“So, anyways, he's out, he's got a mega record deal, he's got a book deal, everything's lined up for him. I mean, he's gonna skate through life. Everybody else is suffering. His wife is living in fear, his children are living in fear. His band doesn't have a pot to piss in."

In the wake of Lambesis’s arrest and imprisonment, the remaining members of As I Lay Dying formed Wovenwar with Oh, Sleeper vocalist Shane Blay.