MIAMI (AP) — A former Haitian government official and more than a dozen other people appeared Monday in federal court in Miami on charges related to the 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
Joseph Badio, a former Haiti Ministry of Justice employee, was brought into the Florida court in a wheelchair. The hearing happened a day after he and 17 others described as Colombian mercenaries were flown to the United States from Haiti, where they had been in custody.
They’re among 30 people charged in the indictment, including Christian Sanon, a Palm Beach County, Florida, resident and dual Haitian-American citizen who was already preparing to face trial next week. Authorities said he aspired to be Haiti’s president.
Although the actual charges against Sanon remain the same, his attorney said details from the new indictment, which was filed Aug. 27 and unsealed this past weekend, could affect his case.
“We are evaluating our next steps given the surprising new indictment on the eve of our trial scheduled for Monday,” defense attorney Zeljka Bozanic said in an email.
South Florida served as a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone of the conspirators’ choosing, U.S. authorities have alleged. At least nine people so far have been convicted at trial or through guilty pleas.
Moïse was “assassinated by individuals seeking to profit from illicit financial opportunities and business contracts,” U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones said.
Moïse was killed on July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries, mostly from Colombia, attacked his home near Port-au-Prince.
In 2025, justice officials in Haiti asked the U.S. and Canada for help after a local court of appeals ordered a new investigation into Moïse’s killing, the third inquiry of its kind since he was shot 12 times at his private residence. His wife, Martine, also was injured in the attack.
The previous investigations were stalled because Haitian judges kept resigning from the case, fearing for their lives, and gangs seized control of the downtown Port-au-Prince courthouse where the judges were interrogating suspects.
Any proceedings in Haiti “continue to face significant difficulties,” the Ministry of Justice and Public Security said Sunday.
The indictment says Badio, who is charged with conspiracy, posed as a U.S. drug agent and participated in Moïse’s killing. A lawyer appointed to temporarily represent him could not immediately be reached for comment.
Badio once worked in the government’s anti-corruption unit until he was fired for alleged ethics violations weeks before the assassination.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Lisette Reid assigned lawyers and set additional court dates during a series of brief dialogues with each of the 18 defendants.
The scheme to kill Moïse included paying mercenaries with money obtained from U.S. government programs that were intended to help businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, the indictment says.
Haiti has not had a president in the five years since Moïse’s death. It has instead been overwhelmed by gang violence: More than 3,000 people were killed this year by June and about 1.5 million people were displaced, according to the U.N.
AP writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.
