<\/p>\n
In this file photo, Haitian President Jovenel Moise, accompanied by his wife Martine Marie Etienne Joseph, speaks to a group of Haitians living in South Florida who welcomed him as he made his first visit to Miami as president during a community meeting at the Little Haiti Cultural Center on June 16, 2017.<\/p>\n
PEDRO PORTAL<\/p>\n
pportal@miamiherald.com<\/p>\n
Months before Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse\u2019s 2021 assassination<\/a> in the hills above his nation\u2019s capital, Rafael Guerrero signed as a witness to a $175,000 line of credit provided by a Broward County businessman to a Doral-area security company to help finance support for Christian Emmanuel Sanon, the Haitian American pastor seeking to replace Mo\u00efse.<\/p>\n Days later, federal prosecutors say, Guerrero attended the first of a series of meetings where participants discussed violently overthrowing Mo\u00efse and installing Sanon as president. Guerrero later attended meetings where participants also allegedly discussed obtaining firearms and ammunition for Colombian commandos hired to support the operation and illegally shipping bulletproof vests from South Florida to Haiti for them.<\/p>\n Now, as federal prosecutors prepare to try Sanon, 67, later this month<\/a> in the July 7, 2021, assassination, which plunged Haiti into gang-fueled terror, they\u2019ve added Guerrero, a Pembroke Pines resident, to the growing list of defendants in South Florida connected to the sprawling plot. The conspiracy stretched from South Florida to Colombia and Haiti before culminating in Mo\u00efse\u2019s brutal killing on July 7, 2021, after a squad of Colombian commandos stormed his house accompanied by two Haitian Americans from South Florida.<\/p>\n Guerrero, who made an initial appearance Thursday in federal court in Miami, is charged with conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, in violation of the Neutrality Act. He faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison, three years of supervised release and a $250,000 fine. Prosecutors are also seeking the forfeiture of property connected to the charges.<\/p>\n Guerrero pleaded not guilty and was released on a $150,000 personal surety bond, according to the clerk\u2019s office. His jury trial is set for early November, but that\u2019s not expected to happen. Guerrero\u2019s prosecution is the latest development in the long-running federal case from Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination, which remains unresolved in Haiti.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, four South Florida men were found guilty<\/a> of conspiring to kidnap or kill Mo\u00efse<\/a>, following 39 days of testimony over nearly nine weeks. Arc\u00e1ngel Pretel Ortiz and Antonio \u201cTony\u201d Intriago, owners of Counter Terrorist Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security in Doral were convicted along with James Solages, who worked for CTU, and Walter Veintemilla, the Broward-area mortgage broker whom prosecutors said helped finance the plot.<\/p>\n Sanon, whose trial was delayed because of health issues, is scheduled to face a federal jury beginning on Sept. 28. The same U.S. federal judge, Jacqueline Becerra, who presided over the earlier trial will preside over Sanon\u2019s.<\/p>\n Like his alleged co-conspirators, who have yet to be sentenced, Sanon faces the possibility of life in prison on charges that include conspiring to kidnap or kill Mo\u00efse. Sanon is also accused of participating in the illegal shipment of the bulletproof vests from CTU for the Colombian commandos and conspiring to mount a military expedition against a friendly nation in violation of the Neutrality Act.<\/p>\n Mo\u00efse\u2019s killing prompted multiple investigations and indictments in Haiti and the United States, but none has yet revealed who ordered his \u200cassassination \u2060or why. The U.S. case has so far led to a dozen arrests.<\/p>\n Five men who pleaded guilty in the Miami federal case, including a former senator in Haiti\u2019s parliament, received life sentences, and are cooperating with prosecutors in hopes of receiving reductions. Another, Tampa businessman Frederick Bergmann Jr., pleaded guilty to the lesser charge involving the shipment of the ballistic vests to Haiti and received a nine-year sentence.<\/p>\n In July, Becerra sentenced Keegan Harricharan,<\/a> a Coral Springs resident, to 20 years after he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering. According to court documents, Harricharan worked with Pretel, Intriago, Veintemilla, Solages, Sanon and Jacob Israel to launder fraudulently obtained COVID-19 relief funds that were used to promote, finance and support the conspiracy to overthrow the Haitian government and assassinate Mo\u00efse.<\/p>\n Israel, who also attended meetings with Guerrero, has pleaded guilty to money laundering conspiracy and is scheduled to be sentenced in December. Based on court documents, it also appears that Guerrero may also cut a deal with prosecutors to avoid going to trial.<\/p>\n Guerrero\u2019s involvement<\/p>\n Prosecutors trace Guerrero\u2019s involvement in the plot to his relationship with Veintemilla, who provided the $175,000 loan to CTU to finance Sanon\u2019s presidential bid and whom prosecutors said received COVID-19 relief proceeds from Harricharan and redistributed the money to members of the conspiracy.<\/p>\n One of the meetings Guerrero attended included Veintemilla and Bergmann, according to prosecutors. There, they discussed violently overthrowing the Haitian government.<\/p>\n Bergmann had received a text from Sanon on Feb. 9, 2021, that included a document stating that Sanon intended to become the president of Haiti as part of \u201ca breakthrough transition,\u201d prosecutors said. Two days earlier, Mo\u00efse had announced that he was the target of a foiled coup<\/a> and police illegally detained 23 people, including Superior Court Judge Yvickel Dabr\u00e9sil<\/a>, in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n In the criminal case against Guerrero, federal prosecutors say he also attended a meeting where Solages was present, and one in which Sanon had signed a consulting agreement. Under the agreement, CTU agreed to provide Sanon and the other co-conspirators with ballistic vests and other support for what prosecutors described as Sanon\u2019s private military forces in Haiti.<\/p>\n Veintemilla paid $9,145 \u201cto fund the travel of approximately 18 Colombian mercenaries to Haiti for the purposes of violently attempting to overturn the existing government of Haitian President Jovenel Mo\u00efse\u201d and installing Sanon as the new president of Haiti, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n Guerrero also attended additional meetings at Vientemilla\u2019s office where participants discussed obtaining firearms and ammunition and smuggling ballistic vests from CTU into Haiti for the Colombians, prosecutors said.<\/p>\n In one exchanged cited by prosecutors, Veintemilla asked Intriago to ask Solages \u201cif he has friends or family here [in the Southern Disrict of Florida] who could fly out [to Haiti] and bring back two suitcases.\u201d<\/p>\n The following day, prosecutors say, Veintemilla wired Solages $15,000 to purchase ammunition.<\/p>\n Guerrero, meanwhile, helped Veintemilla keep a ledger of the money that was being spent toward the operation.<\/p>\n About a month before the murder, on June 10, approximately 20 ballistic vests were illegally exported to Haiti for the Colombians, who were former members of their country\u2019s military, prosecutor say. Intriago, they noted, provided written confirmation to Guerrero of the shipment.<\/p>\n That same day, Guerrero attended another meeting where he helped Veintemilla, Pretel and Intriago prepare a consulting agreement between the South Florida group and Windelle Coq Th\u00e9lot, a Haiti superior court judge.<\/p>\n By then, the group had soured on Sanon, and they had shifted their plans to replacing Mo\u00efse with Coq Th\u00e9lot, whose questionable firing by the president had made her an arch nemesis.<\/p>\n Guerrero continued attending meetings as the plot evolved.<\/p>\n On July 7, the squad of Colombians stormed the president\u2019s neighborhood in the middle of the night with Solages and another Haitian American, Joseph Vincent.<\/p>\n Photos shared with the jury during the Miami trial showed Mo\u00efse\u2019s body riddled with a dozen high-caliber bullets. His wife, Martine Mo\u00efse, who was with him in their second-floor bedroom, was injured. Martine Mo\u00efse testified that the children hid in a first-floor bathroom with their dog during the shooting.<\/p>\n The Colombians, including the co-leader of the squad who was extradited to Miami, have insisted that they did not kill the president.<\/p>\n After learning of Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination and Haitian law enforcement\u2019s unfolding arrests, prosecutors said, Guerrero attended another meeting on July 7, joined by Veintemilla, Pretel, Israel and others to discuss \u201chow to best conceal their involvement the operation.\u201d<\/p>\n