Co-author: Ex-TV chef accused in marital murder plot completely devoted to wife

Chef accused in murder plot seen as doting husband

LOS ANGELES — The former “Calorie Commando” TV chef accused of trying to hire homeless men to kill his attorney wife was completely in love with her and devoted to her, his co-author on a new cookbook said Thursday.

“It’s all so crazy. It just doesn’t add up,” said Amy Reiley, who wrote the aphrodisiac cookbook “The Love Diet” with former Food Network personality Juan-Carlos Cruz. “He was very positive about her.”

Cruz was arrested last week by Santa Monica police after homeless men told an officer that a man had approached them to hire them to kill his wife, Jennifer L. Campbell, 47, a trusts and taxation lawyer.

The 48-year-old chef has pleaded not guilty to attempted murder and solicitation of murder, and is being held on $2 million bail.

Reiley told The Associated Press she has known Cruz for six years and worked on the book with him intensely for nine months.

She said Cruz and Campbell were high school sweethearts who have been together for 33 years. Cruz was born in the Dominican Republic and came to the United States when he was 3, she said.

The couple, who lived in a modest condominium on Los Angeles’ west side, have no children. “They came to terms with that a long time ago,” Reiley said. “They jokingly referred to their dogs as their kids.”

The author said she never detected any disharmony in the marriage.

When she and Cruz worked on recipes, the couple was in constant contact with phone calls and text messages, she said.

When Campbell was sick with the flu once, Cruz set his alarm to go off every two hours to make sure he called her to remind her to take her medicine. “It was really sweet,” Reiley said.

Reiley said Cruz’s career was also moving. She and Cruz were already talking to a production company to do a TV show based on “The Love Diet,” which is due to be published next month.

“He was very much looking forward,” Reiley said.

A former pastry chef at Los Angeles’ posh Hotel Bel-Air, Cruz’s inadvertent weight gain led to a new career after he shed the pounds on the Discovery Health Network’s “Body Challenge 3.”

That led to a show on the Food Network called “Calorie Commando,” which focused on remaking favorite recipes in low-calorie versions. The show lasted 39 episodes and ended in 2006.

Cruz then published “The Calorie Countdown Cookbook.”

Campbell’s attorney, Blair Berk, has declined comment. Food Network said it has no current relationship with Cruz.