Greed, arrogance and power were the forces driving four men charged in the United States with the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse, prosecutors said Tuesday during opening statements.
Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys began to present their opening statements in the trial in Miami against Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages. All accused of conspiring in South Florida to kidnap or kill the former Haitian president.
Moïse’s assassination sparked unprecedented instability in the Caribbean nation, where gang leaders have become increasingly violent and gained power.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean McLaughlin told jurors that the case against the four men was not complicated: They wanted to seize power and enrich themselves.
“So arrogant and self-assured, the evidence will show, and with so little respect for the Republic of Haiti and its people, that they truly believed they could do it,” McLaughlin said.
Defense lawyers argued that the investigation launched in Haiti was a disaster and that their clients were manipulated into taking the blame for an internal coup.
“When you start off on the wrong foot, everything that comes after is difficult to believe,” said Orlando do Campo, Ortiz’s lawyer.
According to court documents, South Florida was a key point in the planning and financing of the plot to overthrow Moïse and replace him with someone chosen by the conspirators.
All four defendants face possible sentences of life in prison and have pleaded not guilty.
THE FACTS
Moïse was murdered on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries — mostly from Colombia — attacked his home near Port-au-Prince, authorities reported.
Ortiz and Intriago were directors of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, known together as CTU, and Veintemilla was a director of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.
Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti and, according to investigators, coordinated with others, including Christian Sanon, a dual Haitian-American citizen whom the conspirators initially favored to replace Moïse.
The conspirators met in South Florida in April 2021 and agreed that once in power, Sanon would award contracts to CTU for infrastructure projects, law enforcement and military equipment, according to investigators. Worldwide Capital agreed to help finance the coup, granting CTU a $175,000 line of credit and sending money to co-conspirators in Haiti to buy ammunition, authorities said.
CTU initially hired about 20 Colombian citizens with military training to provide security for Sanon. The conspirators also spent months obtaining weapons and body armor and trying to establish ties with Haitian gangs, authorities said.
By June 2021, the conspirators realized that Sanon had neither the constitutional requirements nor sufficient popular support to become president. They then supported Wendelle Coq Thélot, a former judge of the Haitian Superior Court. She died in January 2025 while still on the run.
Defense attorneys told jurors that Sanon approached his clients in early 2021 with plans to “liberate” Haiti from Moïse, who had overstepped his mandate as president and faced criticism from Haitian citizens, U.S. politicians and United Nations officials.
Emmanuel Perez, Intriago’s attorney, said the group was working with FBI agents, U.S. Embassy officials and members of the Haitian government in what they believed was the legal arrest of a criminal president.
The defense has pointed to Joseph Félix Badio, a former Haitian government official who was arrested in Haiti in 2023, as the mastermind of a plan to use the president’s arrest as a pretext to assassinate Moïse.
Defense lawyers claim that Moïse had already been murdered by men dressed as Haitian police officers when the Colombian security group arrived to arrest him.
The group had an authentic arrest warrant signed by a judge, said Jonathan Friedman, Solages’ attorney. The judge later said he signed the order under duress. “None of the people who are here being tried knew that,” Friedman said.
Marissel Descalzo, Veintemilla’s lawyer, reserved the right to present her initial argument after the Government presents its case.
After the initial allegations, prosecutors called their first witness, Moïse’s widow. Martine Moïse, who was injured during the attack, testified for about an hour before the court adjourned for the day. He is expected to return Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Becerra has set aside more than two months for the trial.
Five other people previously pleaded guilty in the United States to conspiracy charges and are serving life sentences. A sixth person was sentenced to nine years in prison after pleading guilty to providing bulletproof vests to the plotters. Sanon’s trial will be scheduled later.
Seventeen Colombian soldiers and three Haitian officials face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and the deterioration of the judicial system have paralyzed the investigation.
