Joseph Badio, a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee, was brought into the Florida court in a wheelchair. The hearing happened a day after he and 17 others described as Colombian mercenaries were flown to the United States<\/a> from Haiti, where they had been in custody.<\/p>\n They\u2019re among 30 people charged in the indictment, including Christian Sanon, a Palm Beach County, Florida, resident and dual Haitian-American citizen who was already preparing to face trial next week. Authorities said he aspired to be Haiti\u2019s president.<\/p>\n South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Mo\u00efse and replace him with someone of the conspirators\u2019 choosing, U.S. authorities have alleged. At least nine people<\/a> so far have been convicted at trial or through guilty pleas.<\/p>\n Mo\u00efse was \u201cassassinated by individuals seeking to profit from illicit financial opportunities and business contracts,\u201d U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Qui\u00f1ones said.<\/p>\n Mo\u00efse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince.<\/p>\n In 2025, justice officials in Haiti asked the U.S. and Canada for help<\/a> after a local court of appeals ordered a new investigation into Mo\u00efse\u2019s killing, the third inquiry of its kind since he was shot 12 times at his private residence. His wife, Martine, also was injured in the attack<\/a>.<\/p>\n The previous investigations were stalled because Haitian judges kept resigning from the case, fearing for their lives, and gangs seized control of the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse where the judges were interrogating suspects.<\/p>\n Any proceedings in Haiti \u201ccontinue to face significant difficulties,\u201d the Ministry of Justice and Public Security said Sunday.<\/p>\n The indictment says Badio, who is charged with conspiracy, posed as a U.S. drug agent and participated in Mo\u00efse\u2019s killing. A lawyer appointed to temporarily represent him could not immediately be reached for comment.<\/p>\n Badio once worked in the government\u2019s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations weeks before the assassination.<\/p>\n U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid assigned lawyers and set additional court dates during a series of brief dialogues with each of the 18 defendants.<\/p>\n The scheme to kill Mo\u00efse included paying mercenaries with money obtained from U.S. government programs that were intended to help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the indictment says.<\/p>\n Haiti has not had a president in the five years since Mo\u00efse\u2019s death. It has instead been overwhelmed by gang violence: More than 3,000 people were killed this year by June and about 1.5 million people were displaced, according to the U.N.<\/p>\n AP writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By DAVID FISCHER MIAMI (AP) \u2014 A former Haitian government official and more than a dozen other people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471218,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[185320,185322,185321,74,76,75],"class_list":["post-471217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-haitian-president-jovenel-moise","tag-haitian-president-plot","tag-jovenel-moise","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471217"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471217\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"FILE](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Haiti_US_Presidential_Killing_82776_b03183.jpg\")
FILE \u2013 Colombians and Haitians who are accused of involvement in the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise are escorted in handcuffs to their court hearing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, May 26, 2025. (AP Photo\/Odelyn Joseph, File)<\/p>\n