A federal jury convicted a 20-year-old man on firearms charges Tuesday in the hijacking and shooting deaths of four people last year aboard the Joe Cool charter boat. A mistrial was declared on 12 other charges that included kidnapping and first-degree murder.
The second man tried in the slayings, Guillermo Zarabozo could face life in prison after jurors found him guilty of four counts of causing death through the use of a firearm. Jurors sent a note to U.S. District Judge Paul Huck late Tuesday saying they were deadlocked on the remaining counts after three days of deliberations.
Prosecutors said they plan to retry the case, while defense attorneys said they would likely challenge the verdict they called inconsistent.
Prosecutors said Zarabozo and 36-year-old Kirby Archer booked the 47-foot Joe Cool for a phony trip to Bimini, Bahamas but intended all along to hijack the charter vessel to Cuba. The boat's captain, his wife and two crew members were shot to death and their bodies dumped overboard.
Lawyers for Zarabozo, a security guard, argued at trial that Archer hatched the plot alone and also claimed he killed all four. Archer has pleaded guilty to the killings and faces life in prison at sentencing in October. Prosecutors said he wanted to hide in Cuba from Arkansas authorities investigating allegations that he had sexually molested children and stolen $92,000 from a Wal-Mart he managed.
Slain were the captain, 27-year-old Jake Branam; his wife, 30-year-old Kelley Branam; and crew members Scott Gamble, 35, and Samuel Kairy, 27. The Branams left two small children now in the care of relatives.
The victims' families wept quietly Tuesday as the verdict was read.
The trial was a challenge for prosecutors because they had no bodies, no murder weapons and no witnesses to the crime.
They focused on what they said were efforts by Zarabozo to cut ties with friends and family, his purchase under a fake name of a cell phone used to call charter boats and physical evidence such as blood and shell casings that matched a 9mm Glock that Zarabozo owned.
Guillermo Zarabozo knew exactly what the plan was, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen Gilbert in closing arguments. He signed on for what it was going to take.
Zarabozo, in court testimony, denied any knowledge of the violent plot. He said he was told they were going to Bimini for a $500-a-day security job that might lead to even more lucrative work through CIA connections Archer claimed to have.
You heard no evidence that Guillermo took a life, Zarabozo attorney Michael Caruso said at trial.
The two men paid $4,000 in cash on Sept. 22 for a 50-mile trip from Miami Beach to Bimini. The Joe Cool was found abandoned and far off course the next day by the Coast Guard as it drifted about 30 miles from Cuban waters.
Archer and Zarabozo were found in the boat's life raft miles away. They initially told rescuers a tale about being set upon by Cuban pirates who killed the four people, but both later admitted that was a lie.
Prosecutors said Archer killed Branam and his wife on the upper decks while Zarabozo shot the two crewmembers in the cabin.
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Associated Press writer Curt Anderson in Miami contributed to this report.
