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Former Haitian First Lady Martine Mo\u00efse leaves the Wilkie D. Ferguson courthouse on Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2026 after testifying in the Miami federal trial of Christian Emmanuel Sanon. The Haitian-American pastor is accused of conspiring to kidnap and kill President Jovenel Mo\u00efse.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of<\/p>\n
Tania Francois, CBS Miami<\/p>\n
Lawyers in the federal trial of Christian Emmanuel Sanon<\/a> painted two starkly different portraits Tuesday of the Haitian American pastor prosecutors accuse of planning and helping to execute the violent overthrow of Haiti\u2019s government that culminated in the assassination of President Jovenel Mo\u00efse<\/a>.<\/p>\n Prosecutors portrayed Sanon, 67, as a deeply indebted man driven by \u201cgreed, arrogance and power\u201d who traveled across Florida to film what he called \u201ca freedom speech\u201d and invoked Bible verses to justify Mo\u00efse\u2019s downfall and death.<\/p>\n \u201cI take no pleasure in violence, but the Bible says that… those who sow trouble reap it,\u201d Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean T. McLaughlin told jurors, as he quoted what he described as Sanon\u2019s words.<\/p>\n During a 50-minute opening statement, McLaughlin told jurors that Sanon didn\u2019t just talk about his ambitions, he took action.<\/p>\n Sanon and several associates flew to Haiti from South Florida on a private jet, smuggling a handful of ballistic vests supplied by a Doral-area security company, prosecutors said. The vests, McLaughlin said, were for \u201ca four-man Colombian mercenary team.\u201d<\/p>\n Sanon, also told the team and \u201chis Haitian underlings that President Mo\u00efse must be killed,\u201d McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n The group \u201cproudly and repeatedly\u201d discussed among themselves the importance of obtaining the support of the leaders of some of Port-au-Prince\u2019s violent gangs to eliminate the president, the prosecutor said. Among those discussed were Jimmy \u201cBarbecue\u201d Cherizier, the head of the G-9 gang, and Fantom 509, a rogue outfit of disgruntled and active Haitian police offices.<\/p>\n Initial efforts, including attempts to kidnap Mo\u00efse and have Sanon replace him, failed, McLaughlin said, but Sanon persisted.<\/p>\n \u201cSanon doesn\u2019t give up,\u201d the prosecutor said as he ran through key dates between January and July 2021, and showed photos of some of the individuals they will hear about during the trial. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t pack it in. He continues.\u201d<\/p>\n A different take<\/p>\n Sanon\u2019s lawyers did not dispute that Mo\u00efse, 53, was assassinated on July 7, 2021. But they argued in their opening statement that their client was not responsible.<\/p>\n As Sanon\u2019s wife, two adult sons and grandchildren looked on from the audience, defense lawyer Humberto Dominguez presented a different portrait.<\/p>\n Dominguez placed Sanon\u2019s actions in the context of the political turmoil that was engulfing Haiti in the months before Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination, during which the president faced widespread protest and was at the center of a bitter dispute over when his presidential term was supposed to end.<\/p>\n \u201cFebruary to July, there were several coup attempts,\u201d Dominguez said.<\/p>\n In February 2021, Haitian police arrested a Supreme Court justice and others in the middle of the night, accusing them of plotting to overthrow the president. The arrests later led to intensified protests against Mo\u00efse, who was ruling by decree and had failed to hold elections.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s basically why Mr. Sanon became interested in running for president and in the country that he loves,\u201d Dominguez said. \u201cHe studied in the Dominican Republic, where he learned Spanish, to become a doctor. But his heart\u2019s always been in Haiti.\u201d<\/p>\n The defense attorney sought to turn the prosecution\u2019s theme of greed, arrogance and power back onto Haiti\u2019s political establishment and the U.S. government.<\/p>\n \u201cThe greed here is \u2026 all of the political families that control and run Haiti. It\u2019s a small group,\u201d he said. \u201cThe power of the U.S. government is the umbrella in this case.\u201d<\/p>\n Dominguez also went after the credibility of the government\u2019s cooperating witnesses, several of whom have pleaded guilty in the sprawling assassination case.<\/p>\n Unlike Sanon, some of them were at a mountaintop house hours before a six-car convoy drove toward the P\u00e8lerin 5 neighborhood of the capital where Mo\u00efse lived in a rented residence.<\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re going to hear from people that the government will present who actually killed a man,\u201d Dominguez said. \u201cA person who kills another person, what would they not do for freedom to reduce their time?\u201d<\/p>\n He also accused the prosecutors of \u201cdeliberately\u201d presenting text messages and conversations out of sequence and urged jurors to \u201cuse your common sense\u201d and look at the timelines and charts carefully.<\/p>\n \u201cThe problem with a text message is it doesn\u2019t carry emotion,\u201d Dominguez said. \u201cWhen somebody says something, you don\u2019t know if they\u2019re joking. You don\u2019t know if they\u2019re playing around.\u201d<\/p>\n Widow is first witness<\/p>\n Just as prosecutors did earlier this year in the trial of four of Sanon\u2019s co-defendants who were convicted<\/a>, they opened their case with testimony from former first lady Martine Mo\u00efse.<\/p>\n She described being awakened by gunfire in the middle of the night. \u201cHe just looked at me and said, \u2018Honey, we are dead,\u201d she said about the president\u2019s reaction.<\/p>\n Martine Mo\u00efse then described the final minutes of her husband\u2019s life, in which no member of his security team came to their rescue. She also spoke of her own struggle to survive after being wounded in the arm inside their bedroom.<\/p>\n As gunfire erupted around the house and concrete fell from the ceiling, Martine Mo\u00efse said she crawled on all fours down the wooden staircase toward the first floor where the couple\u2019s two college-age children were sleeping.<\/p>\n She told them to hide in a bathroom \u201cbecause there was no window in the bathroom, and they would be safer in there.\u201d<\/p>\n The children hid there with one of the family dogs, Delilah. \u201cThey were holding onto Delilah\u2019s mouth so that she wouldn\u2019t bark.\u201d<\/p>\n She told them she would return once the shooting stopped. \u201cI told them that in this difficult time, I could not leave their father alone,\u201d Martine Mo\u00efse said.<\/p>\n She then crawled back up the stairs on her hands and knees, Martine Mo\u00efse said. Back in the bedroom, she asked the president who had he had called. He listed the heads of his three-layer security detail and L\u00e9on Charles, the then-director of the Haiti National Police.<\/p>\n The president, she said, then asked her to lie under the bed so she wouldn\u2019t get hit by a stray bullet.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018Honey, I\u2019m too big. I cannot go under the bed.\u2019 He told me, \u2018Put as much as you can underneath the bed, since they\u2019re on their way to rescue us.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Wearing a black pantsuit and pale pink shirt, Martine Mo\u00efse broke down when prosecutors presented a photo that showed her husband\u2019s bloodied body lying on top of a copy of Haiti\u2019s constitution, on the floor of their disheveled bedroom.<\/p>\n She was lying down, she testified, when she was shot. \u201cI saw Joe look at me. I saw his face bewildered, like someone who said, \u201cGod, I\u2019ve lost my wife.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Mo\u00efse said she could see her husband, who was still alive, on the other side of the bed.<\/p>\n She described hearing the intruders speaking Spanish and searching for a document. She heard the names \u201cJefe\u201d and \u201cPipe,\u201d she said. Prosecutors say that \u201cPipe\u201d is Victor Albeiro Pineda Cardona<\/a>, a 45-year old Colombian member of the so-called \u201cDelta Team,\u201d tasked with entering the president\u2019s house first.<\/p>\n A 20-year veteran of his country\u2019s military, Pineda was jailed in Haiti since the day after Mo\u00efse\u2019s assassination. He was transferred to South Florida on Sept. 20, along with 15 other former Colombian soldiers and a former Haitian government functionary, Joseph F\u00e9lix Badio,<\/a> 63. On Monday, Pineda pleaded not guilty and was denied bond by a US. magistrate judge in Miami.<\/p>\n Mo\u00efse said that while she was lying on her stomach on the other side of their bed, she kept looking at her husband.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce they shot him,\u201d she said, breaking down in tears, \u201cI closed my eyes because there was nothing left. It was over.\u201d<\/p>\n The defense began their cross-examination of Mo\u00efse, who is scheduled to return to the stand on Wednesday. Defense lawyers aim to show that the president, who came to power after a disputed 2015 election that had to be rerun because of fraud, had many enemies in Haiti. They also want to show inconsistencies in the former first lady\u2019s testimony between what she testified to at the first trial and what she said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n At the first trial she mentioned the names of several influential Haitians who could have been involved in her husband\u2019s killing. On Tuesday, Martine Mo\u00efse declined to name names, or confirm past names she had cited.<\/p>\n After being asked by defense lawyer Zeljka Bozanic about various individuals she accused in the past, she replied: \u201cI believe the investigation will be used to give the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n This story was originally published September 29, 2026 at 8:47 PM.<\/p>\n