(Newser) – A Christian heavy metal rocker pleaded guilty yesterday to hiring a hit man to murder his estranged wife, NBC San Diego reports. Prosecutors say Tim Lambesis, lead singer of Grammy-nominated California band As I Lay Dying, asked a personal trainer at his gym in April of last year if he could find someone to kill wife Meggan Lambesis, because she had filed for divorce in 2012 and he feared she would be granted a large settlement and would keep their three children from touring with him. Lambesis then gave $1,000 cash and all of his wife's information to an undercover agent who was supposed to carry out the plot, and was subsequently arrested in May.

Lambesis was recorded telling the undercover agent he wanted his wife "gone," and when asked by the agent if Lambesis wanted his wife murdered, he said, "Yes, I do," the AP reports. The New York Daily News reports that he was willing to pay the "hit man" $20,000 for the job. In her divorce filing, Meggan Lambesis claimed her husband had become "obsessed with bodybuilding" and tattoos, may have been using steroids, and was inattentive while watching their children to the point that he once fell asleep. Lambesis claimed she started restricting his visits with the children when they separated after eight years of marriage. The 32-year-old will be sentenced May 2; he faces up to nine years in prison on charges of solicitation of murder and conspiracy to commit a crime. (Read more Tim Lambesis stories.)

