A Haitian businessman and convicted cocaine-trafficker who admitted to providing weapons, lodging and money in the plot to kill Haiti’s president, Jovenel Moise, two years ago next month, has been sentenced to life imprisonment in the United States.
Rodolphe Jaar, 51, became the first among dozens of suspects to be sentenced in connection with the assassination.
In March, Rodolphe Jaar pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to provide material support, providing material support and conspiring to kidnap and kill Haiti’s president — each of which carried a potential life sentence. Under his plea agreement, he faces between 30 years and life at his sentencing.
Jaar was the first of nearly a dozen suspects in U.S. custody to enter a guilty plea in the July 7, 2021, middle-of-the-night assassination of Moise at the president’s home in a Port-au-Prince suburb. By entering those pleas, Jaar was hoping to avoid a life sentence. But on Friday, he received just that in a Miami federal courtroom when Judge Jose E. Martinez sentenced him to life on each of the three counts. The terms are to be served concurrently.
The court will recommend that Jaar be designated to a federal facility located in or near South Florida.
In all, there are 11 suspects in federal custody in Miami, accused of coordinating various aspects of the deadly plot that left Moise dead with a dozen gunshot wounds when Colombian commandos stormed his compound in Pétionville and allegedly entered his home with the “intent and purpose of killing” him, according to the affidavit.
They have all been charged by indictment after either being transferred to the United States from Jamaica, where two suspects fled to after the killing, or the Dominican Republic, which is where Jaar fled after months in hiding in Haiti. Three Haitian Americans with ties to South Florida were flown from prison in Port-au-Prince earlier this year.
Four others who are in custody were arrested in April in South Florida and Tampa by U.S. agents. They are accused of playing central roles in the plot, focusing on the weapons, ballistic vests and financing that authorities say fueled the deadly scheme. Three of the defendants — Antonio Intriago, owner of Doral-based Counter Terrorist Unit Security, or CTU; Arcángel Pretel Ortiz, operator of the affiliate CTU Federal Academy LLC; and Walter Veintemilla, head of Miramar-based Worldwide Capital Lending Group — are charged with supporting a conspiracy to kidnap and kill Moise.
During his March court appearance, Jaar admitted providing “material support” in a conspiracy to kidnap Moise, which would evolve into a murder. He was asked at that time by the judge if he “provided funding to bribe certain Haitian officials who were responsible for providing security to President Moise so that Jaar’s co-conspirators would be able to obtain access to [him] during the operation.”
Jaar replied: “Yes, your honor.”