After nearly 10 years, a total of six men have been charged in connection with the kidnapping of a drug trafficker that was staged to appear as a DEA bust and resulted in the murders of two people in Broward County.
Five men were charged by indictment in December: Palacio Valdes Farley, 45; Emmanuel Xavier White, 51; Andrew Francois Martin, 33; Joassaint Josiah Aristil, Jr., 30; and Walter James Tillman, 37. A sixth man, Frederic Wayne Mordon, Jr., 44, entered a plea agreement for his role in the kidnappings in 2024 and will be sentenced in May, court records show.
The men who were charged in December are facing two counts of kidnapping resulting in death and one count of causing the death of a person in furtherance of a crime of violence and drug trafficking crime. Farley, Martin and Aristil are also charged with killing a witness, federal prosecutors announced in a news release Friday evening. Farley, who was the head of a South Florida drug-trafficking organization, is already in federal prison serving consecutive sentences on drug-trafficking related charges, totaling 34 years.
In August 2016, Farley proposed to the group robbing a “narcotics stash house” in the 200 block of Lake Pointe Drive in Oakland Park that was run by a known drug trafficker, referred to only by the initials G.T., according to a court document in Mordon Jr.’s case.
Before the night of the robbery, the men rented two cars and purchased GPS tracking devices, one of which was placed on G.T.’s car, as well as clothes that read “DEA” and other supplies, federal prosecutors said. On Aug. 18, 2026, the men tracked his car to an apartment complex in Lauderhill and found him inside his car with a friend, Tiara Jeanne Register, in the passenger seat.
Farley, Mordon, and White confronted them with guns, wearing “DEA-style shirts and masks,” and claimed to be DEA agents, federal prosecutors said. Farley pulled G.T. from the car at gunpoint as Martin took over the driver’s seat. Meanwhile, White and Mordon placed Register in one of their two rental cars with Aristil and Tillman acting as lookouts.
After leaving the Lauderhill apartment complex, Register was taken to the original point meeting in Lauderhill, where Aristil held her against his will. G.T. was driven by Martin, Farley and White to the Oakland Park apartment, according to prosecutors.
Farley and White upon arriving at the complex were met with G.T.’s associate Eric Orlando McNair, who was standing at the bottom of a stairway in the complex smoking a cigarette, prosecutors said. McNair saw them and ran upstairs into the apartment, and the victim at that moment struggled with White, trying to disarm him.
Farley shot G.T. twice in his back once the struggle started, according to the factual proffer in Mordon Jr.’s case. The victim was “left for dead” as the men ran upstairs to go after McNair, but he managed to crawl away and hide in bushes, ultimately surviving.
Farley and White then went into the apartment and found McNair in a bedroom, prosecutors said, where Farley allegedly shot McNair, killing him. The men stole drugs and cash from the apartment and Martin drove away in G.T.’s car.
All six men met up at White’s home in Lauderhill after the robbery and shootings, with Aristil bringing Register along with him in one of the rental cars. Farley told Martin to take Register to a nearby street and kill her, prosecutors said. Martin and Aristil drove her to a dead-end street, where Martin allegedly shot and killed Register.
The men face mandatory life sentences on the kidnapping charges if convicted. The maximum penalty for all charges is death or life in prison.