MIAMI – After having to stare at grotesque footage for hours, the jury began to planned Wednesday afternoon at the fate of Manuel Marin, a Cuban-American businessman accused of a murder-for-hire plot focused on Camilo Salazar, a romantic rival.
Assistant State Attorney Jonathan Borst confirmed footage of Salazar’s bruised and partly burned frame whilst Dr. Emma Lew, the Miami-Dade clinical examiner who carried out the sufferer’s post-mortem over a decade in the past, testified in court docket. She additionally stood up and held up a photograph for the jury to peer.
“He had two cuts across the front of his neck,” Lew mentioned including that Salazar, a 43-year-old father from Coconut Grove, had suffered bone fractures and burns in his genital house, and he was once nonetheless alive when anyone slit his throat with out hesitation.
A poster-size photograph on an easel going through the jury confirmed Salazar, as detectives discovered him together with his palms certain on June 1, 2011, in a desolated house alongside Okeechobee Road, whilst Assistant State Attorney Justin Funck delivered his final commentary.
“Manuel Marin is the match that lit the fire. Manuel Marin started striking that match on March 15. He set that fire and let it burn. He let Camilo Salazar burn,” Funck mentioned regarding Marin’s first name to Isaac in March 2011. “His ego, his pride, his machismo — that was the gasoline.”
Detectives known the trio who kidnapped and tortured Salazar ahead of killing him as Roberto Isaac, a Latin Kings gang member; and MMA combatants Alexis Vila Perdomo and Ariel Gandulla.
Salazar, a married internal dressmaker, vanished on June 1, 2011, after shedding off his child lady at his spouse’s place of job in Coconut Grove. Detectives mentioned his friends and family later discovered his automobile within the place of job’s parking space, as they frantically looked for him.
Funck cited mobile phone and SunPass data as “direct evidence” of Marin’s involvement in Salazar’s homicide. He additionally indexed Marin’s financial institution and assets transfers ahead of the homicide as proof that there was once a premeditated plan.
Attorney Jose M. Quiñon, who defended Marin, argued there was once inadequate proof to seek out Marin, a former Presidente Supermarkets spouse, in charge of second-degree homicide and conspiracy to devote kidnapping and homicide.
“You are not guilty simply because you may be in some place or you may associate with someone who commits a crime,” Quiñon mentioned.
Vila Perdomo, who was once Marin’s pal as a result of they had been each Cuban and shared an pastime in MMA, “is the one who decides that he is going to help his friend,” Quiñon mentioned all over his final commentary later including, “The plan was to scare Salazar.”
Quiñon mentioned Isaac, who’s the “violent” gang member, was once the person who made up our minds to kill Salazar — with out Marin’s wisdom. He additionally mentioned Isaac was once the person who smelled like gas and no longer Marin, who he described as a hardworking father and doting husband who had employed maids and chefs to lend a hand or even purchased the home subsequent door to offer his spouse a moment pool.
The prosecution, Quiñon mentioned, simply didn’t have sufficient proof or a competent witness to confirm with simple task that Marin had killed Salazar.
“This killing is something that took place in a place where nobody knows who really killed Mr. Salazar,” Quiñon instructed the jury.
Funck disagreed and argued that Marin was once the person who “decided” Salazar needed to die and for the reason that plan was once to kidnap him and kill him they held Salazar at Isaac’s space till Marin arrived from his circle of relatives commute to Bimini, an island within the Bahamas.
Funck mentioned Gandulla had testified that he noticed Marin and the blue Mercedes-Benz.
“Marin is waiting with the hatch-up, back of the Mercedes lined in plastic,” Funck mentioned.
Before the final statements and jury directions, Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Miguel M. de l. a. O requested Marin if he sought after to testify despite the fact that Quiñon, a former Assistant State Attorney in Miami-Dade County, had prompt him to not.
With the lend a hand of a court docket translator, Marin instructed De l. a. O that he had made up our minds to not testify. Prosecutors additionally discussed all over the trial that Marin vanished a couple of days after the homicide and surrendered to government in 2018 at a U.S. embassy in Spain to stand fees in Miami-Dade.
In 2019, a jury discovered Isaac in charge of second-degree homicide and conspiracy to devote kidnapping and homicide, and Vila Perdomo in charge of conspiracy to devote kidnapping and homicide. A pass judgement on sentenced Isaac to existence in jail and Vila Perdomo to fifteen years in jail.
As phase of a plea settlement, a pass judgement on sentenced Gandulla to 36 months in jail, which he served. The Florida Department of Corrections launched him on April 11, 2022. He testified within the circumstances of Isaac, Vila Perdomo, and maximum lately Marin.
Quiñon puzzled Gandulla’s honesty and motives and he requested jurors to overlook his testimony. Funck requested the jury to imagine Gandulla may have selected to stay in Canada together with his circle of relatives, however as an alternative he pleaded in charge to kidnapping out of regret.
Before deliberations began, De l. a. O made up our minds to disregard a juror announcing he had spent maximum of the trial slumbering and another juror took his position. If the jury unanimously consents to convict Marin, he may just face a most sentence of existence in jail.
Local10.com archives
Coverage of the trial
Coverage of the case
Copyright 2023 via WPLG Local10.com – All rights reserved.