‘Throat slit and his ***** lit on fire.’ Trial starts in case tied to MMA fighters, market mogul
BY DAVID OVALLE
OCTOBER 28, 2019 01:57 PM, UPDATED OCTOBER 28, 2019 05:47 PM
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Duration 1:43
Comienza juicio de conspiración de asesinato para ex combatiente de MMA en Miami involucrado con dueño de supermercado Presidente
Declaraciones de apertura en el juicio de ex combatientes de MMA acusados de asesinato por tortura de Camilo Salazar, supuestamente a instancias del propietario de Supermercados Presidente. BY VIDEO COMPARTIDO / EDITADO POR CHARLES TRAINOR JR.
More than eight years after Camilo Salazar’s body was discovered at a brush fire near the Everglades, jurors heard a sordid backstory of his demise — a secret affair, a wealthy and jealous husband, and a murder plot hashed out at a Miami mixed-martial arts gym.
“Hell hath no fury like a man scorned,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Justin Funck told jurors. “Kidnapped, held hostage, tortured, beaten about the head, throat slit and his ***** lit on fire.”
The mastermind, prosecutors told jurors Monday, was Manuel Marin, the rich owner of a string of Presidente Supermarkets, whose wife was cheating on him with Salazar. And while Marin was not yet facing a jury, two of his accused cohorts started their trials on Monday in a sensational only-in-Miami murder case.
Sitting at the defendant’s box was Alexis Vila Perdomo, 48, a former mixed-martial arts fighter and Cuban wrestling champ who is accused of setting up the plot; and Roberto Isaac, 63, a gym buddy accused of taking part in the killing.
Prosecutors are relying on detailed cellphone records, placing Vila in the thick of the plot, and Marin and Isaac at the murder scene. Also, there’s the testimony of star witness Ariel “The Panther” Gandulla, an ex-MMA fighter who is doing prison time for helping in the kidnapping.
Defense lawyers told jurors their clients were innocent.
Vila was in Las Vegas training for a fight, and phone records don’t prove he knew what was going to happen to the victim, defense lawyer Ted Mastos said.
“You will not find a scintilla of evidence that my client ever agreed to a kidnapping or a murder,” Mastos said.
Isaac’s lawyer said Gandulla was “raw-dog lying” to save his own skin — his fingerprint was found on the victim’s car.
“The evidence is not going to show Roberto killed Camilo,” defense lawyer Michael Walsh said.
Marin, who helped establish Miami’s Presidente Supermarkets, ran several stores before he disappeared to Europe shortly after the killing. He remained a fugitive until he was captured in Madrid last year.
Marin remains jailed in Miami, also charged with murder, and won’t go on trial until next year.
Camilo Salazar - FAMILY PHOTO
Salazar’s murder was a mystery when his charred corpse was found in June 2011. A businessman, Salazar lived in Coconut Grove with his wife and newborn baby.
But Salazar had a secret — he was having an affair with an old flame, Jenny Marin, the wife of the supermarket owner. Prosecutors said Manuel Marin confronted the two lovers at a cafe in South Miami-Dade.
“This case is about a man who discovered his wife was cheating on him, hunted his wife’s lover and killed him in the most vicious way possible,” said prosecutor Funck, who is trying the case with Gail Levine.
Salazar was last seen alive on June 1, 2011, after he dropped off his 3-week-old child at the office of his wife just before 10 a.m. He was supposed to return 45 minutes later but he vanished and stopped answering his phone. That night, friends found his Chevrolet Trailblazer where he had parked it, less than a block away from his wife’s office.
Prosecutors said Isaac had been watching Salazar, and got Gandulla to help him kidnap Salazar from the street. Isaac posed as a cop and used flex cuffs to bind their hostage.
Driving in a rented truck, the two transported Salazar to Isaac’s home in Wynwood, where he was kept for hours while they waited for Marin to return from a boat trip to Bimini, prosecutors said. Isaac and Vila kept calling Marin, whose phone was not getting reception.
“The cellphone evidence tells the whole story,” Funck said. “Frantic call after frantic call. Waiting impatiently. They waited for Marin to return.”
Finally, after Marin returned, Gandulla and Isaac drove the hostage to Broward County, where they turned him over to Marin — whose SUV was lined with a plastic tarp.
“Camilo knows his life is over. He begins to scream and beg for his life,” Funck said.
Gandulla, spooked and feeling that he’d been duped into helping, ditched the men and drove off — something supported by phone records. He was later told to keep quiet, and fled to Canada, where he tried to kill himself as the details of the murder surfaced after prosecutors charged the men in 2018.
Gandulla agreed to return to Miami, and accepted a 36-month prison sentence in exchange for his testimony.
On Monday prosecutors began delving into the relationships between Marin and the others.
Vila hails from Cuba, where he was a champion wrestler — even capturing a bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.
Sponsored by Marin, he later came to Miami, where he was given a job stocking shelves at a Presidente store. Vila also trained Marin’s son, and ran a wrestling studio.
“He gave my client a job in one of his grocery stores, worked the hell out of him and paid him little,” said Mastos, Vila’s lawyer.
Vila hit the news in 2004 when — despondent over a break-up — he plowed his car into a terminal at Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport, sparking fears of terrorism.
MMA fighters Alexis Vila, Jorge Mas Vidal, and Ariel Gandulla at the Young Tigers Gym in Miami in 2008. Vila and Gandulla are now accused of taking part in a plot to murder. Gaston de Cardenas EL NUEVO HERALD
Vila spent three years in federal prison for the airport wreck. After walking free, he dubbed himself The Exorcist and began racking up victories in the local mixed-martial arts scene at age 37. Prosecutors even showed jurors a photo of Vila and Gandulla with superstar MMA champ Jorge Mas Vidal, who has nothing to do with the case but trained with them at the Young Tiger Gym over a decade ago.
“He was the best,” testified Antonio Goenega, a gym associate who knew all of the men through the fight scene.
The trial is expected to last over a week before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Miguel de la O.
Attorney Ted Mastos and his client Alexis Vila Perdomo before the opening statements in the trial of ex-MMA fighters accused of the torture murder of Camilo Salazar, allegedly at the behest of the owner of a string of Presidente Supermarkets in Miami, Florida. Opening statements were Oct. 28, 2019. CHARLES TRAINOR JR.
CTRAINOR@MIAMIHERALD.COM
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Originally Posted by GeneChing
