Washington receives four life sentences in ’06 double killing

By CONNOR HOLMES
published in the Cape Coral Daily Breeze and Naples Daily News 7/21/09

After two trials and an eventual conviction on two counts each of first-degree murder, kidnapping and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, Roderick Washington will serve four consecutive life sentences plus 30 years in prison, a Lee County judge said Monday.

Lee Circuit Judge Thomas Reese handed down the sentence after Washington, 19, was found guilty for his role in the 2006 double slaying of Alexis Sosa, 18, and Jeffrey Sosa, 14.

Isabel Sosa, Jeffrey and Alexis Sosa's grandmother, commented in Spanish that she is "very satisfied and happy with the prosecutors, the State Attorney's Office, the judge and the jury."

Witness testimony pegged Washington as holding a gun to the Sosas at co-defendant Kemar Johnston's home while they were bound, beat and tortured. He also helped carry the Sosas to the trunk of a car used to transport them to a north Cape Coral industrial site where they were fatally shot.

Nine others, several of whom were reportedly members of a rap group called the "Cash Feenz," are accused in the murders.

Washington's mother said her son was not a member of the Cash Feenz.

"They tried to make him seem like he was one of the Cash Feenz, and he wasn't," Lashun Washington said following the sentencing Monday afternoon. "He didn't deserve life."

Lashun Washington pointed to the unreliability of witness statements during the trial, which defined Washington's role as a principal in the Sosas' killings but were inconsistent in other respects.

"You have a lot of witnesses telling lies," she said. "He didn't have a chance."

Washington will appeal the decision, and will attempt to retain defense attorney Paul Sullivan's council for the process, Lashun Washington said.

Washington has 30 days to file for appeal.