Third US trial finds Spaniard guilty of murdering 3

A US jury on Saturday unanimously found a Spaniard guilty of murdering a nightclub owner and 2 dancers after the accused's 3rd trial in 21 years.

Pablo Ibar, 46, has already spent years on death row.

One of his lawyers, Benjamin Waxman, confirmed the latest conviction in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and told AFP he would appeal.

"We're very disappointed with the verdict," Waxman said.

The trial began in October.

Ibar was charged for the 1994 murders of the club manager and 2 female dancers during a robbery at the manager's home in Miramar, Florida.

Ibar and another man were both charged that year but the co-accused, after an initial conviction, was ultimately acquitted and freed at a retrial.

Ibar first went on trial in 1997 but the jury could not agree on a verdict.

At a 2nd trial in 2000 he was convicted and sentenced to death.

But in 2016, Florida's Supreme Court overturned the conviction and ordered a retrial, stating "numerous deficiencies and failures" of Ibar's defense lawyer.

The case has been closely followed in Spain, where it was taken up as a cause by anti-death penalty activists.

Ibar will be sentenced by the jury on February 25. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

Source: france24, January 20, 2019

Pablo Ibar es declarado culpable de triple asesinato

El hispano-estadounidense se enfrentaba a su cuarto juicio por un crimen ocurrido en Florida en 1994

El infierno judicial que ha vivido el hispano-estadounidense Pablo Ibar desde hace casi 25 años ha tenido el más negro desenlace: "Culpable". Ese ha sido el veredicto unánime del jurado en el cuarto juicio contra el español por un triple asesinato cometido en 1994 en Florida.

Tras cuatro jornadas de deliberaciones en un tribunal de Fort Lauderdale, al norte de Miami, las ocho mujeres y cuatro hombres que componen el jurado entregaron su veredicto: "Guilty" ("Culpable"), en los seis cargos que pesaban contra Ibar, tres de ellos de asesinato en primer grado.

El juez que preside el caso, Dennis Bailey, anunció el veredicto a la sala, momento en que se produjeron escenas de dolor y lágrimas contenidas entre los familiares de Ibar, de 46 años, quien lleva casi 25 preso, 16 de los cuales los pasó en el corredor de la muerte.

La agónica lucha de Ibar por demostrar su inocencia concluyó así con un veredicto de culpabilidad que le mantiene tras las rejas tras su detención en 1994 por el asesinato de Casimir Sucharsky, dueño de un club nocturno de Miramar (en el condado de Broward) y de dos modelos, Sharon Anderson y Marie Rogers.

Hoy, a las 10.30 hora local (15.30 GMT), el instante en que el magistrado leyó la decisión del jurado que tenía en sus manos su vida, Ibar, pálido, mantuvo su entereza y hasta llegó a pasar su brazo por el hombro de Benjamin Waxman, su abogado principal, cuyo semblante se descompuso y casi rompe a llorar.

En la banca, se escuchaban los sollozos apagados de la familia de Ibar -el juez había prohibido cualquier expresión de emociones que alterara el orden-, pero el rostro de Tanya, la esposa del español, eran la máxima expresión de tristeza y dolor.

Tanya, siempre inquebrantable al lado de Ibar durante todos estos años de calvario judicial, ha sido, sin duda, su roca y fuerza.

"Yo no renuncié nunca a él; de manera que no puede abandonarse. Mantengo la esperanza porque conozco la verdad: Pablo es inocente", dijo hace unos días a Efe al hablar del camino de reveses y dolor, del rosario de vicisitudes afrontadas. De un combate inacabable.

Pero el mazazo de este sábado fue demasiado para ella. Arropada por familiares, Tanya Ibar se retiró de los tribunales nada más terminar la audiencia, mientras los medios, la mayor parte de España, rodeaban a los abogados y respetuosamente se mantenían a la espera de que algún miembro de la familia se dirigiera a ellos.

Cándido Ibar, el padre del español, quien en el momento de la lectura de la sentencia se cubrió el rostro con las manos, se dirigió a los medios para señalar que el veredicto de culpabilidad "no se puede explicar, ni entender".

"Esto no me lo esperaba. Juicio nulo sí, pero esto no. ¡Guilty! (¡Culpable!)...", exclamó.

Al final, la solidez de las pruebas y testimonios presentados por la defensa de Ibar, dirigida por el letrado Waxman, no fue suficiente para convencer al jurado de la inocencia del español.

"El jurado no entendió las pruebas de ADN que mostraban numerosas dudas razonables de que no era Pablo" unos de los autores del triple crimen, dijo a Efe Joe Nascimento, otro abogado de la defensa.

Nascimento insistió en que las pruebas de ADN presentadas "muestran absolutamente que Pablo no es la persona" que aparece en un vídeo de seguridad grabado en el lugar del crimen, la vivienda de Sucharsky, ubicada en Miramar.

Han sido casi 25 años preso, 16 de los cuales los pasó Ibar en el corredor de la muerte, tras su condena en el juicio del año 2000, hasta que el Tribunal Supremo de Florida anuló la condena en febrero de 2016 y ordenó la repetición del juicio, en el que la Fiscalía volvió a pedir la pena capital.

El próximo 4 de febrero habrá una audiencia donde la defensa pedirá una sentencia de cadena perpetua en lugar de la pena de muerte solicitada por la Fiscalía.

Se prevé que la audiencia para sentencia tenga lugar el próximo 25 de febrero.

Un cuarto de siglo después de este brutal triple asesinato, el "caso Casey's Nickelodeon" -nombre del club nocturno propiedad de Sucharsky- vuelve de nuevo a tener un culpable, Pablo Ibar. 

Source: telemundo.com, Olga Luna, January 19, 2019

Death row inmate Pablo Ibar found guilty of triple murder

A Florida jury did not explain its decision for convicting the half-Spanish defendant, who has maintained his innocence throughout three trials and 24 years spent in prison

A US jury has found death row inmate Pablo Ibar guilty of a 1994 triple killing in Florida in what is known as the “Casey’s Nickelodeon” murder case.

The eight-member jury did not provide the reasons for its decision, which confirms an earlier guilty verdict handed down in 2000. The conviction was read out on Saturday by Judge Dennis Bailey, and Ibar was taken back to prison. 

A sentence will be read out on February 25, with prosecutors seeking the death penalty once again.

In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court wrote that there was a lack of physical evidence connecting Ibar to the triple murders

Ibar, who is of Spanish descent on his father’s side, has been behind bars for 24 years, 16 of them on death row, for the murder of a bar owner and 2 dancers inside the former’s house in Broward County, Florida.

The case has been widely followed in Spain due to his father’s origins in the Basque Country. A Pablo Ibar Association was set up to lobby against the death penalty and to raise funds to pay for Ibar’s defense.

His father, Cándido Ibar, who emigrated to Florida in the 1960s to play the traditional Basque sport known as pelota, traveled to Spain last year to support a crowdfunding drive to cover his son’s legal fees, which are estimated at more than $1 million.

This latest trial marked the 3rd for Ibar, whose 1st time inside a courtroom, in 1997, ended in a hung jury. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in 2000, then won a Florida Supreme Court battle to be granted a retrial on the basis that his court-appointed counsel had mounted a flawed defense.

In 2016, the Florida Supreme Court also wrote that there was a lack of physical evidence connecting Ibar to the triple murders. Ibar’s DNA was not found on a blue T-shirt recovered from the crime scene, and which partially covered the face of the perpetrator according to grainy surveillance camera footage.

No DNA evidence

No conclusive DNA evidence was ever found linking Ibar to the crime scene. Of the more than 100 fingerprints found inside the house of victim Casimir “Butch Casey” Sucharski, not one of them belonged to Ibar. In 2016, a new analysis of the shirt produced a sample that partially matched Ibar’s DNA, although the sample was so damaged that the results are considered inconclusive by international lab standards.

None of the blood, hair and saliva samples recovered in the investigation match Ibar either. The sweat on the t-shirt that allegedly covered Ibar’s face contained DNA belonging to the 3 victims and to 2 unidentified males, neither one of whom was Ibar, according to lab tests.

His father traveled to Spain last year to support a crowdfunding drive to cover the legal fees, estimated at more than $1 million

His defense has always claimed that it would have been “virtually impossible” for Ibar not to leave a single trace after such an attack. Kucharski – the owner of a bar called Casey’s Nickelodeon – and the dancers Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers were bound, beaten and killed.

Prosecutors have routinely ignored the physical evidence and focused on grainy black-and-white video footage of the killings to convince the jury that it was Ibar’s face in the images.

Ibar has always maintained his innocence, and has shown a willingness to undergo tests. A co-defendant, Seth Penalver, was originally sentenced to death but later acquitted, using the same evidence used against Ibar.

A mafia job?

Days after the triple murder, a man told the police that it had been a settling of scores perpetrated by members of the Gambino mafia. This man turned up dead just days later, and the police never followed up on this line of investigation. 

Security tapes showing threats being made against the bar owner were deleted by the time the case first went to trial.

Gene Klimeczko, who used to be a friend of Ibar’s, testified in court that he had been paid $1,000 to link Ibar to the crime. He also said that this payment had been sanctioned by Paul Manzella, one of the police detectives in charge of the case.

On July 14, 1994, Ibar was arrested on petty drug-dealing charges. That same day, the police received news of a triple homicide committed days earlier, and charged Ibar with the crime based on the video footage.

Source: elpais.com, January 20, 2019

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but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde