The guy you are feeling sorry for thought he successfully paid for a hit on at least one human being.
I feel like anyone is caught selling drugs and/or with money in the quantities that this guys was attributed to drugs would go to jail for this long. They probably dropped the murder charge because they already had him for life on a plethora of other charges and don't feel this one was worth pressing, maybe due to the fact that both parties hit man/hit were undercovers. A hazard of doing business like this is possible jail time, if he actually tried to have someone killed he more than deserves what he got. He's like a mafia don that thinks by having other people do his shit work, he stays clean. Thanks to laws like conspiracy and intent though, this isn't the case.