Putting the Last Alleged Moïse Assassination Plotter on Trial

Five years after a squad of hired gunmen left Haitian President Jovenel Moïse dead from 12 bullet wounds in his own bedroom, the U.S. federal justice system is pursuing accountability that Haiti’s fractured institutions could not achieve. The trial of Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a 67-year-old Haitian American pastor, opened September 28, 2026, at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida before Judge Jacqueline Becerra. It marks the most significant escalation yet in a prosecution that now encompasses several individuals federally indicted in the United States alone — with additional defendants expected to follow.

Why Miami, Not Port-au-Prince

The decision to prosecute this case in South Florida stemmed not from jurisdictional ambition but from institutional reality. Haiti’s judiciary stalled repeatedly after judges resigned under death threats from armed factions that now control much of Port-au-Prince, including the downtown courthouse where suspects had once been questioned. Gangs eventually seized that courthouse outright, forcing hearings to relocate to a rented private home. In late 2025, Haiti’s Court of Appeal annulled the existing investigative indictment, citing procedural failures and an inability to identify the masterminds, and ordered a fresh inquiry — the third such restart since the assassination.

American prosecutors had independent legal grounds from the start. Federal court records establish that South Florida functioned as the operational and financial hub of the entire conspiracy: meetings were held there, money changed hands, and former Colombian soldiers were recruited — all on U.S. soil, giving the Southern District of Florida clear standing to lead the prosecution.

The Man at the Center: Sanon’s Charges and Background

Sanon faces a range of federal charges, the most serious of which is conspiracy to kidnap or kill a foreign head of state, a count carrying a potential life sentence. He has entered a not-guilty plea on all counts. Federal prosecutors portray him as a politically ambitious physician and evangelist who divided his time between Palm Beach County and Haiti, and who was designated early on by the conspiracy’s organizers as their preferred successor to Moïse — the civilian face of what they envisioned as a new Haitian government.

He originally faced less severe charges tied to the illegal export of body armor to Haiti and a violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act. Prosecutors later expanded the case to place Sanon squarely within the killing conspiracy, following a Haitian judicial indictment that named him among more than 50 suspects. The trial is expected to run six to eight weeks, with 57 witnesses on the government’s list and more than 8,000 gigabytes of digital evidence gathered from over 100 devices across Haiti, Colombia and the United States.

From Conviction to Continuation: The Co-Defendants’ Verdicts

Sanon’s trial was initially set to proceed alongside four other defendants. His case was severed in early March 2026 due to an undisclosed illness. Those four — Arcángel Pretel Ortiz and Antonio Intriago, co-owners of the Doral-based security firms operating collectively as CTU, mortgage broker Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages, a CTU operative in Haiti — were found guilty by a federal jury on May 8, 2026. All four face potential life sentences and are awaiting sentencing. Prior to that verdict, eight additional individuals in the broader case had entered guilty pleas: six on charges related to the core assassination conspiracy, and two others on money laundering tied to pandemic-era relief funds funneled into the plot. Five of those who pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges are already serving life terms.

Martine Moïse Takes the Stand

The most emotionally charged moment of the trial’s opening week came when Martine Moïse, the former first lady, took the stand as the prosecution’s lead witness. Visibly shaken and overcome with emotion at points, she recounted the overnight assault of July 7, 2021, when armed men stormed the presidential residence in the hills above Port-au-Prince, killed her husband and left her critically wounded. Moïse had served in the same role during the earlier Miami trial, where her firsthand account of the attack opened the prosecution’s case.

A Conspiracy Assembled in South Florida

According to the government’s theory of the case, the plot took shape during a series of meetings in South Florida in April 2021, where Sanon convened with a former Haitian senator and a circle of American associates. Under the arrangement described in the indictment, Sanon would assume Haiti’s presidency once Moïse was removed, while CTU would receive government contracts covering construction, logistics and security. The firm recruited approximately twenty former Colombian soldiers with military backgrounds to serve as Sanon’s protection detail upon his arrival in Haiti.

By June 2021, the conspirators had concluded that Sanon lacked the constitutional qualifications required under Haitian law and the political standing to govern credibly — yet the operation continued regardless. A failed attempt to detain Moïse at the Port-au-Prince airport on June 14, 2021, shifted the group’s focus toward other potential successors. Five weeks later, the commandos stormed the presidential residence in the early hours of July 7, killing the president and wounding his wife.

Eighteen More Defendants Cross the Border

The Sanon trial opened just days after a sweeping expansion of the U.S. case. On September 20, 2026, 18 individuals who had been held in Haiti since 2021 were transported to the United States on a military aircraft. The group includes 17 former Colombian soldiers and Joseph Badio, a former official in Haiti’s Ministry of Justice who served in its anti-corruption unit until he was dismissed for alleged ethics violations just weeks before the assassination. In related proceedings, defense attorneys identified Badio as the figure who allegedly issued the order to kill rather than arrest the president on the night of the attack. He had spent more than two years as a fugitive before Haitian authorities captured him in October 2023. Badio appeared in Miami federal court the following day in a wheelchair.

With their transfer confirmed, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida Jason Reding Quiñones stated that 30 people have now been federally indicted in the case. In a public statement, Quiñones made clear the investigation remains active: five years on, he said, defendants are still being brought before American courts — and that process is not finished.

A Court Filling a Caribbean Void

The Miami proceedings carry a geopolitical weight that extends well beyond any individual defendant. Haiti has had no elected president since Moïse was killed, and the power vacuum his death created has been filled largely by armed gangs that now dominate significant sections of the capital. A multinational security force led by Kenya, which arrived in Haiti in June 2024, has achieved limited results against groups entrenched in areas including Cité Soleil and other strategic zones across Port-au-Prince.

Against that backdrop, the Miami courtroom is not simply processing a roster of defendants — it is building an enforceable legal record for a political assassination that dismantled a Caribbean nation’s governing architecture. Whether these convictions will serve as a credible deterrent against future transnational plots targeting heads of state, or whether they amount to a delayed accounting with limited reach into Haiti’s ongoing crisis, will depend partly on what the Sanon trial reveals about who conceived and financed the conspiracy — and who may still remain beyond its reach.