GREENWOOD (AP) — Trial has been delayed until October in a civil lawsuit filed by a Mississippi lawyer who was the target of what investigators called a failed murder-for-hire plot.

The Greenwood Commonwealth reports the lawyer, Lee Abraham, seeks unspecified damages from Dr. Arnold Smith. The lawsuit claims the oncologist diminished the lawyer’s quality of life by hiring a hit man.

Abraham and Smith started a feud when the lawyer represented the doctor’s wife in their divorce. Authorities said Smith hired someone to kill Abraham, but the alleged hit man was himself shot to death in Abraham’s office in April 2012. Investigators from the state attorney general’s office were protecting the office.

Criminal charges against Smith have been put on hold because he has been found mentally incompetent to stand trial.