Judge delays Miami trial of five men accused of plotting assassination of Haiti's president

Yahoo

4 days ago

The Miami trial of five men accused of plotting the assassination of Haiti's president has again been delayed, this time to March 2026 — almost five years after the fatal shooting of Jovenel Moïse at his suburban home outside Port-au-Prince.
U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra said at a recent hearing that she was not happy about delaying the federal trial, which was originally set for March and then postponed until September of this year.
Becerra said she had no choice but to push it back again because of the massive volume of evidence, including more than 2.5 million text messages, emails and other records, that federal prosecutors are still turning over to the defense lawyers — a basic discovery issue that has turned into a sore point for the judge.
'I do not take it lightly in any way that this case has been delayed,' Becerra told the five defendants, who were arrested and taken into federal custody in the months after the July 7, 2021, assassination of Moïse. 'This is not a delay that I am at all happy with.'
Compounding the run-up to the Miami trial: Armed gangs have been terrorizing Haiti, a country in free fall without a political leader, making it unsafe for the defense lawyers in Miami to go there and question ex-Colombian soldiers jailed in Port-au-Prince on Haitian charges of assisting in the slaying of the president.
As a result, Judge Becerra granted the defense team's request to take video depositions of five of the Colombians, who represent about one-third of the former commandos in jail.
'Although the difficulties of traveling to Haiti to conduct these depositions should not be understated, there appears to be no reason why the depositions could not take place over video conference,' Becerra ruled after the May 19 hearing on the trial date and other issues.
Despite the judge's approval of these critical depositions, there is one potential Haitian witness whom the defense lawyers in Miami won't be able to question: Former Haitian Superior Court Judge Windelle Coq Thélot, who died in January.
Haitian authorities considered Thélot a key suspect in the investigation of Moïse's killing. But she took to the grave unanswered questions about her alleged role in the assassination plot and whether she indeed promised immunity to the defendants in Miami who are accused of directing it.
According to prosecutors in Miami, Thélot gained the support of the suspected plotters in South Florida as a replacement for Moïse in June 2021, when they decided that Christian Sanon, a Haitian priest and physician, 'was not a viable option to take over' the presidency.
Thélot's 'apparent signature' appeared on a written request for assistance to arrest Haiti's president that 'purported to provide Haitian immunity' to the conspirators in South Florida, according to an FBI affidavit filed in federal court. One of the suspects, Haitian-American maintenance worker James Solages, traveled from Haiti to Miami on June 28, 2021, to deliver the document to another suspect, Antonio 'Tony' Intriago,' the owner of a security business.
On July 1, Solages traveled back to Haiti and five days later met with several conspirators at a house near Moïse's residence. Solages 'falsely told those gathered that it was a 'CIA Operation, and, in substance, said that the mission was to kill President Moïse,' the FBI affidavit stated.
Solages and other suspects drove in a convoy to the president's home on the night of July 7, the assassination date. Once inside the residence, Solages declared they were involved in a 'DEA Operation' to ensure 'compliance from' Moïse's security team, the affidavit stated. Some of the ex-Colombian soldiers recruited for the mission were assigned to find and kill the president.
On July 22, federal agents questioned Solages while he was in Haitian custody. After he was read his Miranda rights, Solages admitted that by mid-June 2021, 'he knew that the plan was to ultimately assassinate President Moïse,' according to the FBI affidavit.
To date in the U.S. case, five of the 11 defendants have pleaded guilty to conspiring to kill Haiti's president, resulting in life sentences that they hope to get reduced with their cooperation. Among those convicted: two ex-Colombian commandos, a former Haitian senator, a Haitian-American man who worked as an informant for the DEA, and a previously convicted Haitian drug trafficker.
A sixth defendant, a Tampa businessman, pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges involving the smuggling of bulletproof vests that were illegally exported to Haiti for the group of ex-Colombian soldiers who carried out the deadly attack.
The remaining five defendants are charged with conspiring in South Florida to kidnap or kill Haiti's leader and related charges, including recruiting the Colombian commandos. The conspiracy charge carries up to life in prison.
The defendants facing trial are: Intriago, the head of a Miami-area security firm, CTU; Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, a former FBI informant who joined Intriago at CTU; Walter Veintemilla, a Broward County financier; Solages, the Haitian American; and Sanon, who was initially seen by the group as a successor to Moïse as Haiti's president. All five defendants are being held in a federal lock-up before trial.
Of the five remaining defendants, Sanon was the only one who told the judge at the hearing this month that he opposed delaying the trial until March of next year.
But Judge Becerra, while showing sympathy for his pre-trial detention over nearly four years in Haiti and Miami, said holding one trial for him and another for the others was not practical for several reasons.
'Given the complexity of the case, the government wants all the defendants tried together,' Becerra told Sanon. 'I am not inclined to try your case in September and all the other defendants in March [2026].'
In February 2024, Sanon was charged with the others with conspiring to kill Haiti's leader, after first being accused of trying to carry out a military expedition against a foreign country. It was the fifth superseding indictment filed by prosecutors with the U.S. Attorney's Office and Justice Department. Since then, most of the team has been replaced with new prosecutors.
The other four defendants did not oppose the trial delay when questioned by the judge, though Intriago expressed his frustration over the prosecution's sharing of evidence in the high-profile case.
'I don't understand why we don't have everything in our hands,' Intriago told the judge. 'I just wanted to express my frustration that the government give us all the information and not hide anything from us.'
Since the president's assassination at his home outside Port-au-Prince, Haiti has plunged into total chaos as armed gangs have terrorized the island nation with no presidential election on the horizon.
While the U.S. investigation led by the FBI moved quickly to arrests and charges in Miami, Haiti's probe of the president's slaying only resulted in an indictment in February 2024. A total of 51 people were charged by an investigative judge in collaboration with a prosecutor.
Sanon is the only defendant charged in the Haiti prosecution that was also named as a defendant in the Miami case.
Among those in Haiti accused of the deadly attack: the slain president's widow, Martine Moïse, who suffered gunshot wounds during the assault on the family's home.