Florida | Witness offers new exculpating evidence in Pablo Ibar case, defense says

A defense attorney for Pablo Ibar, the man sentenced to life in the June 1994 “Casey’s Nickelodeon” murders, is seeking to have his 2019 conviction vacated after a new witness came forward, alleging two people who were never charged were the true killers.

The “newly discovered evidence,” a sworn affidavit from a witness who was previously not known to Ibar’s defense, could have potentially resulted in a different outcome at Ibar’s trial, attorney Daniel Tibbitt wrote in a court motion filed Sunday.

The witness’s identity is not shared in the motion due to safety concerns. The witness signed an affidavit swearing that two people he knows who are referenced in the court filing only as “A.N. aka El Loco” and “F.B. aka Loeva” are responsible for the murders of Casimir “Butch Casey” Sucharski, owner of Casey’s Nickleodeon nightclub, Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers.

The three were shot to death during an invasion of Sucharski’s home in Miramar early on the morning of June 26, 1994. The murders were captured on grainy home surveillance video. Ibar, originally from the Basque Country in Spain, was charged with the murders and was tried multiple times, in 1997 ending in a hung jury and in 2000 resulting in a sentence to death row, which was changed to a life sentence. Ibar has always maintained that he is innocent, his attorney wrote.

Prosecutors said a T-shirt found at Sucharski’s home had DNA that matched Ibar, with the probability it was a different Caucasian man at one in 11 million, and one in 35 million among Hispanic men. And the man who was identified as Ibar on the surveillance video had worn a T-shirt covering his head during the murders and removed it afterward, walking directly in front of the camera.

Ibar’s defense repeatedly contested the DNA evidence. Seth Penalver, once Ibar’s co-defendant, was also charged, but his 1999 conviction and subsequent death sentence were also overturned, and at a retrial in 2012 he was found not guilty.

Tibbitt told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday that the new evidence came after the witness contacted a group of Ibar’s supporters, the Pablo Ibar Association, after Ibar had lost an attempt to appeal in the summer of 2023.

The witness swore in the affidavit that he had met “A.N.” when they worked for drug trafficking organizations in South Florida in the 1990s, according to the motion. In the summer of 1994, A.N. asked the witness to help with a home invasion in the summer of 1994, but he did not participate. Months later while surveilling for a home invasion robbery, the witness heard A.N. bragging about “the home invasion and murders that he and F.B. committed” at a home of a person whose name is redacted in the motion but is clear that it is referencing Sucharski.

The witness said both A.N. and F.B. admitted to the murders and that they were directed by someone identified only as “C.P. aka El Gordo” to enter the house “to get the drugs or money” stemming from a drug-related debt. The witness at the time was an “enforcer” for the Colombian drug organization that the two men worked for, Tibbitt said. The witness was arrested in a federal case two years later and swore in the affidavit that he told both federal and Miami-Dade County law enforcement of A.N.’s and F.B.’s crimes, including the murders, according to the motion.

Tibbitt said after further investigation into the witness’ background and the two men he said had confessed, “everything seemed to check out.” The two men the witness named had been in and out of custody in South Florida for other crimes but were not incarcerated at the time of the Casey’s Nickelodeon murders in 1994, he said.

Tibbitt wrote in the motion that Ibar does not know and has never communicated with the witness nor any of the people the witness mentioned until recently, and the defense would have pursued the lead if they had. “If Pablo had known about this, if his attorneys had known about this, and ultimately if the jury had known about this, he would not have been convicted,” Tibbitt told the Sun Sentinel.

“The evidence against him was always weak and questionable. This certainly would have taken it over the top in terms of reasonable doubt.” Tibbitt is asking that the judge grant an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the witness’ information, though acknowledged as hearsay, is credible and reasonably likely that it would result in a different outcome at retrial.

A spokesperson for the Broward State Attorney’s Office told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that appellate attorneys will file a response in court. A response had not been filed as of Thursday.

Ibar’s defense filed a second motion for post-conviction relief on Monday, also seeking the conviction be vacated, arguing that his trial attorneys were ineffective. Information from the Sun Sentinel archives contributed to this report.

Source: sun-sentinel.com, Angie DiMichele, June 26, 2025

"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."

— Oscar Wilde

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