Divorce lawyer charged in cold-case stabbing death of his own client — for the most mundane reason, according to cops

The former divorce attorney has been charged in the murder of his own former client in downtown Cleveland, Ohio more than a decade ago — and it was all so he could have her case delayed, according to prosecutors.

Gregory Moore, 51, was indicted Friday on a slew of charges — including aggravated murder, conspiracy and kidnapping — for the 2013 killing of 53-year-old nurse and mother of four Aliza Sherman, Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s announced Friday.

Moore allegedly planned the deadly attack to stop her divorce case, which was set to begin the day after she was killed, prosecutors alleged in an unsealed indictment.

It was also not the first time he had resorted to crime to delay cases, authorities said. Moore later pleaded guilty to calling in bomb threats to court houses to delay his cases, according to authorities.

Sherman’s estranged husband, Dr. Sanford Sherman, was never charged in the case — but he refused to cooperate with cops, investigators previously said. He died in a Florida nursing home last summer.

Prosecutors said they believe Moore had at least one accomplice, but did not name any additional suspects.

He allegedly lured Sherman to his office on March 24, 2013, texting her to meet him at 4:30 pm. and demanding she notify him when she was en route, the indictment said.

While waiting outside Moore’s office, a hooded figure approached her from behind and stabbed her more than ten times in the neck and back, prosecutors said.

Authorities believe that either Moore or an unnamed co-conspirator carried out the attack, according to prosecutors.

Sherman managed to call police while she laid wounded and bloody outside the law office, and was assisted by a Good Samaritan who found her on the sidewalk, prosecutors said.

She died after arriving at a nearby hospital.

“The Sherman family has waited over a decade for answers regarding their mother’s homicide,” Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley said in a statement.

“Through the tenacious work of multiple law enforcement agencies, evidence was accumulated that paints the unmistakable picture that Gregory Moore orchestrated and participated in the brutal murder of Aliza Sherman.”

Moore allegedly called and texted Sherman before and after the attack in an attempt to fabricate an alibi, according to the indictment.

“These texts and requests for calls were for the purpose of creating false evidence that Moore was unaware of Sherman’s assault,” the indictment says.

At the time of Sherman’s murder, the attorney was already under investigation for sending bomb threats to a courthouse on days he was set to appear in court in a similar attempt to delay cases, according to the indictment.

In 2017, Moore pleaded guilty to inducing panic related to the bomb threats and falsification and for providing misleading statements to law enforcement during the investigation of Sherman’s murder.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigations took on Sherman’s case in 2021, uncovering evidence linking Moore to the killing, the agency said.

He will be arraigned on May 16, court records indicate. No attorney has been listed for him at this time.