Left inset: Ilya Shimonov (Maricopa County Attorney’s Office). Right inset: Robert Celifie (Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The bus where Ilya Shimonov, known as “Mike the Barber,” operated his mobile barbershop before Robert Celifie arranged his killing (Instagram).
An Arizona man has been sentenced to life in prison for arranging the execution-style murder of a mobile barber shortly after the victim completed a haircut, prosecutors said.
Robert Celifie, 45, of California, orchestrated the January 2022 murder-for-hire plot targeting 32-year-old Ilya Shimonov, known as “Mike the Barber.” Shimonov had just finished a haircut appointment in the parking lot of a Scottsdale hotel when he was attacked.
The Maricopa County Attorney’s Office announced Monday that Celifie received the life sentence after an August conviction on charges of conspiracy, first-degree murder and first-degree burglary. A second jury convicted his co-conspirator, Chaze Cable, of the same offenses in 2025. Cable was also sentenced to life in prison.
“Shimonov operated a mobile barber from a converted school bus,” the attorney’s office said. “On the evening of January 3, 2022, Mr. Shimonov had just completed a haircut appointment in the parking lot of a Scottsdale hotel when he was shot multiple times. He died from those injuries.”
Investigators “quickly realized” that Shimonov’s cellphone had been taken from the scene. They tracked it first to Las Vegas and then to Los Angeles. Prosecutors said Cable drove to Scottsdale in Celifie’s vehicle and used Celifie’s gun to kill Shimonov.
In addition to supplying the car and firearm, Celifie gave Cable money, photographs of Shimonov, the planned time and location of the attack, instructions to take the phone and directions for what to do afterward, according to the attorney’s office.
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“This defendant may not have been the one who pulled the trigger, but through his actions he condemned this victim to death just the same,” Maricopa County Attorney Rachel Mitchell said. She credited the Scottsdale Police Department and prosecutor Richard Dusterhoft, adding that Celifie would “spend the rest of his life in prison.”
Shimonov’s mother said Monday that operating a “barber bus on wheels” had been her son’s “dream,” according to AZ Family.
“And he made it happen,” she said.
Police believe Celifie arranged the killing to obtain Shimonov’s cellphone, although authorities have not disclosed why Celifie and Cable wanted the device.
Prosecutors said Shimonov did not know either Celifie or Cable, though Shimonov and Celifie had some mutual acquaintances, according to local NBC affiliate KPNX.
At Monday’s press conference, Maricopa County deputy attorney Richard Dusterhoft described how the plot was arranged. Celifie was asked where the killing should take place and provided the address of a hotel in Old Town Scottsdale. He then instructed Cable to take the iPhone after Shimonov completed the haircut and told him to meet at the Orleans Hotel. That hotel was the first location where Shimonov’s phone was detected after leaving Scottsdale.
