Posted on 03/05/2009 2:31:02 PM PST by AuntB
WEST PALM BEACH — A federal jury this afternoon convicted two men in the 2006 murders of a family of four along Florida's Turnpike.
The verdicts mean either life in prison or death for Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya, both 25.
The 12-member jury after four days of deliberations also convicted Danny Varela, 28, and Liana Lee Lopez, 20, on charges related to the drug ring the four ran from a luxury Briar Bay home in 2006.
Jose Luis Escobedo worked as a drug connection for the group. He, his wife Yessica and their 3 and 4-year-old sons Luis Damian and Luis Julian were killed after he and Varela, the group's leader, argued over missing money.
Escobedo's sister Rita Escobedo Flores, his mother Rosario Escobedo, and Yessica's mother Sara Guerrero all expressed joy over the verdict, crying as they hugged investigators in the case after U.S. District Judge Daniel T. K. Hurley dismissed court for the day.
The three women, along with Guerrero's sister Monica Moreno, sat through each day of more than five weeks of testimony.
"We needed that closure," Flores said. "We needed answers to those unanswered questions, and even though there are still some unanswered questions God answered most of them for us."
Varela wasn't charged in the deaths, but Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes told jurors last week that investigators were still searching for evidence and could charge him if they find more evidence connecting him to the killings.
Varela's attorney, Robert Gershman, is doubtful that will happen. As it is, several of the convictions guarantee life sentences for Varela.
"They've worked this case for three years now," he said of investigators before adding of his client: "There's always a fear of a murder charge out there, but I don't know how big a fear that is after today."
Varela appeared stoic during the verdict as he has throughout the trial, though Gershman said he was talking to him as the verdicts were read, expressing his upset all the while.
His mother frowned while seated in the courtroom, while family members for Sanchez, Troya and Lopez cried openly. Those family members declined to comment.
No sentencing date was set for Varela and Lopez. The penalty phase of the trial for Sanchez and Troya is tentatively set to begin March 16.
The verdicts against Sanchez and Troya put into play the rarely-used death penalty in Florida federal court.
If the jury opts for death in either case, it will be the first time a federal jury has imposed the death sentence since lawmakers re-authorized the capital punishment in 1988.
Jurors rejected claims from Ruben Garcia and Michael Cohen, Troya and Sanchez's attorneys who claimed that Mexican drug cartel members eliminated the Escobedos because he owed them money.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Carlton, Kastrenakes and Department of Justice trial attorney Richard Burns presented their case over more than four weeks, building it mostly on circumstantial evidence.
Among the evidence, investigators found Troya and Sanchez's palm prints on Turnpike toll receipts from the night of the killings, tracked cell phone records to show the two and Escobedo were on the highway at the same general place and time and discovered a piece of luggage belonging to the Escobedos in a van Varela sent to be repainted after the killings.
Prosecutors waited until the last full day of their case to give jurors evidence of bullets found in the group's Garden Court home that matched bullets found at the crime scene just south of Fort Pierce. No murder weapon was ever recovered.
Troya, Sanchez, Varela and another man, Juan Gutierrez, were arrested less than two weeks after the murders when investigators executed a search warrant at the group's home and found a cache of guns and drugs.
Both Gutierrez and another man, Kevin Vetere, pleaded guilty to their roles in the drug ring. Vetere received a 12-year prison sentence and spent nearly three days on the witness stand during the case testifying against the other four.
Gutierrez has yet to be sentenced, according to court records.
The penalty phase in the case will likely last a little more than a week, including a full four days in which defense attorneys Donnie Murrell and James Eisenberg will ask jurors to spare the lives of Sanchez and Troya respectively.
Kastrenakes told Hurley that the government's case against the two will likely last a day, adding that they will rely strongly on evidence already presented during the trial.
"Jurors rejected claims from Ruben Garcia and Michael Cohen, Troya and Sanchez's attorneys who claimed that Mexican drug cartel members eliminated the Escobedos because he owed them money."
Janet, the new DHS Secty. says we have NO crime spilling over into this country because of the mess in Mexico. None of these defendants or victims are illegal aliens that we know of. The two getting the death penalty certainly aren't because we don't kill Mexico's citizens when they kill us,just our own. They certainly were not 'Americans'.
This is the result of the Mexican Drug cartel power that both parties have allowed to take hold here and the misguided anchor baby/past amnesties. We can expect more of this.
Florida. The needle or the electric chair. Decisions decisions.
Drug Terrorism...coming soon to a town near you
I say bring back public hangings in the town square.
Sadly Old Sparky was retired. Crist will probably ban capital punishment soon.
When this came out I knew it was Latin drug gang illegal alien crime. The joys of open-borders.
Obama appointed this idiot to protect Americans from Mexican scum?
Scoff---she won't do or say anything that will lose latino votes for Obama.
Oh, I forgot----this sap-happy lamebrain, said she believes in Paper Pan-----that wishing will make it so.
There, don't you feel a lot better? (/s)
Drawing and quartering would be nice.
“Drug Terrorism...coming soon to a town near you”
Too late. It seems the director of Homeland Security is the only one who just won’t admit it.
gangs wage war - USATODAY.com
That’s bad news in broad swaths of the USA, where Mexican drug gangs have extended their operations to at least 230 cities from Texas to Alaska, ...
www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-02-22-mexicoborder_N.htm
If it's the needle can we at least make sure they use a square one?
I'm convinced this is the right idea. All of the horror and debasement has been taken out of capital punishment. The perps just...disappear.
Let their gang buddies see them dancing at the end of a rope and maybe it will be a deterrent. Not only that but the Pay-Per-View revenues would probably pull us out of the economic tank.
Everyone wins!
Drug Terrorism...coming soon to a town near you”
Lay down with dogs-—get up with fleas.
I agree. Bring back public executions. And institute a lottery (just like jury service) which will require citizens to "participate."
How can it be civilized for a culture to tolerate the slaughter of the innocent and NOT punish the guilty? Justice is perverted.
Heck we don't even need a lottery in some states. How many people volunteered to be on Gary Gilmore's firing squad? And that was in Utah!
I was hoping to give hoplophobes a chance to overcome their abnormal/unreasonable fears. Refusal to participate could result in revocation of their voting privileges.
That works for me.
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