4 men found guilty in Miami in Haitian President Jovenel Moïse's assassination

Four men have been convicted in South Florida in connection with the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s last elected president, Jovenel Moïse.

Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla and James Solages were found guilty Friday in Miami federal court of conspiring to kill or kidnap Moïse and providing material support for the plot. They were also convicted of violating the U.S. Neutrality Act.

Moïse was killed in the early morning hours of July 7, 2021, when about two dozen foreign mercenaries — mostly from Colombia — attacked his home near Port-au-Prince, officials said. Moïse’s wife, Martine, was wounded during the attack and flown to the U.S. for treatment.

According to court documents, South Florida was a central location for planning and financing the plot to oust Moïse and replace him with someone the conspirators chose.

Moïse’s assassination led to unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean nation, where gang leaders have grown increasingly violent and empowered.

Ortiz and Intriago were principals of Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy and Counter Terrorist Unit Security, collectively known as CTU, and Veintemilla was a principal of Worldwide Capital Lending Group. Both companies were based in South Florida.

Solages was a CTU representative in Haiti who investigators say coordinated with others, including Christian Sanon, a dual Haitian-U.S. 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, security forces and military equipment, investigators said. Worldwide Capital agreed to help finance the coup, extending a $175,000 line of credit to CTU and sending money to co-conspirators in Haiti to purchase ammunition, officials said.

CTU initially retained about 20 Colombian nationals with military training to provide security for Sanon. Conspirators also spent months obtaining weapons and body armor and attempting to build relationships with Haitian gangs, officials said.

By June 2021, the conspirators realized Sanon had neither the constitutional qualifications nor sufficient popular support to become president. They then backed Wendelle Coq Thélot, a former Haitian Superior Court judge. She died in January 2025 while still a fugitive.

Defense attorneys argued at trial that the investigation into the assassination was a mess and that the four were manipulated into taking blame for an internal coup. They said the men believed they had a legitimate warrant signed by a Haitian judge.

The defense attorneys told jurors that Sanon approached their clients in early 2021 with plans to liberate Haiti from Moïse, who had overstayed his term as president and faced criticism from Haitian citizens, U.S. politicians and United Nations officials.

Sentencing is scheduled for July 28. All four defendants face possible life sentences.

At least five others have pleaded guilty in the conspiracy and are serving life sentences.

Separately, 20 people, including 17 Colombian soldiers, face charges in Haiti. Gang violence, death threats and a crumbling judicial system have stalled an ongoing investigation.