3:30 -- Party-goers testify to Washington's involvement in "Cash Feenz" murders
The state has called two party-goers to testify about the evening Alexis and Jeffrey Sosa were brutally murdered.
Both have placed Roderick Washington at co-defendant Kemar Johnston’s 2006 birthday party holding the Sosas at gunpoint as they were bound, beat and tortured.
William Arciszewski said he saw Washington holding a rifle to the Sosas, and that Johnston also had a firearm. He testified that a cell phone voice message sparked the violence towards Jeffrey and Alexis when they came to Johnston’s party.
“It was like when they showed up you could hear a pin drop,” Arciszewski said. “They started beating them. I could hear plates breaking and everything.”
Arciszewski said that, from his hiding place in Johnston’s bathroom, he heard a gunshot and Alexis Sosa pleading for his life and screaming as his back was carved with knives.
“I recall very vividly,” he said. “It’s one of the things that sticks out the most in my mind, Jeffrey Sosa begging for his life. He said, ‘I have a lot to live for, don’t kill me.’”
Arciszewski recalled seeing the Sosas carried out of Johnston’s home through the garage area, and also that Alexis Sosa had a black bag covering his head.
Several individuals, including Washington and co-defendants Paul Nunez and Kenneth Lopez, left Johnston’s home with the Sosas and later returned to the home after they’d killed Jeffrey and Alexis, Arciszewski said.
“There’s no nice way to put it,” he said. “(The Sosas) were taken out like they were trash. They were taken out like they didn’t matter.”
Arciszewski said he was afraid that if he left Johnston’s home or called the police he would be killed. He told the jury the Cash Feenz transformed from a rap group into a violent lifestyle, one which he rejected.
“It’s like they began living the music they made,” he said. “To me, music is expression. They overdid it.”
Donteavious Overmyer, Washington’s friend, said he was the first to hit Alexis Sosa in the face, cutting his hand open and beginning the onslaught of violence against the Sosas. He said Washington held a handgun on the Sosas, and later a rifle.
Attorneys are now questioning co-defendant Iriana Santos.
11:45 -- Co-defendant, police testify in Washington retrial
Michael Balint, a co-defendant in the Roderick Washington double-murder retrial, has taken the stand as a state's witness.
Balint is accused of hogtying Alexis Sosa with shoelaces prior to the Sosas being tortured and killed at co-defendant Kemar Johnston's birthday party in 2006. He has accepted a plea deal to serve 14 years in prison for two counts of kidnaping in exchange for his testimony.
He is also serving a concurrent 5-year prison term for battery on an inmate.
Balint said he beat Kenneth Mitchell, a man convicted of killing his best friend.
Balint told jurors he had spent the night drinking, smoking pot and taking Xanex the night the Sosas were killed. He testified to visiting the strip club Emerald City in Port Charlotte before going to Kemar Johnston's house to buy pot at 2 a.m.
Balint testified that Washington held a handgun to the Sosas as they sat on the floor of Johnston's home, and later a .22 rifle.
"He was poking them in the ribs with it, telling them not to move and stuff," Balint told the jury.
Balint said he went home prior to the torture and killing of Jeffrey and Alexis Sosa and did not witness the acts. He said he was still intoxicated the next day, and did not know who called him to tell him the Sosas had been killed.
Larry Stringham, forensic supervisor for the Cape Coral Police Department, testified to evidence found at the north Cape industrial site where the Sosas' bodies were discovered as well as at Johnston's home. Evidence found includes bullet casings, live rounds, shoe and tire prints and a comforter containing Alexis Sosa's DNA.
Additionally, a firearm was later discovered under insulation in Johnston's attic, which had not been located there initially.
The trial is in recess for lunch, and will resume at 1:20 p.m.
10:30 -- State begins case against Cash Feenz defendant Washington
Both the state and defense have given opening arguments this morning in the double-murder retrial of Roderick Washington.
Kurtis Grau, the lead Cape Coral detective in the 2006 murders of Jeffrey and Alexis Sosa, is currently on the witness stand. The jury is being shown a forensics video of the north Cape industrial site where the charred remains of the Sosas and a vehicle were discovered. The video was also shown during Washington’s first trial.
Washington’s friends and family are among those watching the video quietly.
Brian Lauer, an Operations Lt. for the Cape Coral Fire Department, also testified. Lauer was a first responder to a vehicle fire Oct. 7, 2006 at the industrial site where the Sosas were found. Lauer said he discovered a bloody blanket among the remains, which he brought to the attention of police.
“These young teens, Jeffrey and Alexis Sosa, were tied up, beat, tasered, carved with knives, bleach was poured into their wounds and onto their faces. They were shot, killed and eventually set on fire,” Marie Doerr said during opening statements. “This is a case that starts out a mob mentality, peer pressure at its ugliest.”
Doerr described a night of drugs, alcohol and brutal violence at the birthday party of co-defendant Kemar Johnston. The Sosas’ deaths were the result of the cooperation of many individuals acting together, one of whom was Washington, she said.
Defense Attorney Paul Sullivan agreed that a heinous crime had occurred, but argued the evidence couldn’t prove the details of Washington’s involvement beyond a reasonable doubt.
Part of what made the evidence unreliable, Sullivan said, was the unreliability of witnesses who were either intoxicated or had received plea bargains from the state.
“What else happened that night?” Sullivan asked the jury. “Who did what? Who poured bleach on these poor kids? Who hit somebody with a gun? Who did this, who did that, who did what, when? All of that evidence is locked up in the heads of young people whose minds were messed up on drugs and alcohol that night, who’ve told lie after lie after lie.”
Sullivan pointed specifically to the inconsistent statements of co-defendant and state’s witness Alex Fernandez regarding the slayings.
“There’s not going to be evidence of anything to indicate that Rod Washington is guilty of first-degree murder,” Sullivan said. “There’s not going to be evidence that Rod Washington is guilty of a kidnaping.”
9:45 -- Juror dismissed in Cash Feenz re-trial
The 14-person jury of Roderick Washington’s double-murder retrial, two of whom were alternates, has been reduced by one after presiding Lee Circuit Judge Thomas Reese learned Thursday morning that one of the jurors attempted to discuss the case with a Cape Coral detective on multiple occasions.
The jury was seated hardly more than 12 hours ago in Washington's retrial in the 2006 double-murder of Alexis and Jeffrey Sosa, allegedly perpetrated by a rap group called the Cash Feenz. He is one of 10 accused in the binding, torturing and killing of the Sosas at a house party in Cape Coral.
Reese voiced his concerns about the male juror's prior vocalizations of the case to the detective. "What he had to say to him I do not know, but it doesn't really matter," Reese said. “He has already demonstrated issues of concern to be a juror in this case. What concerns me more than anything: what, if anything, has he said to the other jurors?”
The juror told Reese he called the detective's son to discuss football, and mentioned his participation as a juror in passing to the detective, but did not recall prior conversations. Each of the remaining 13 jurors said they had neither discussed the case nor watched media accounts. Washington was convicted in May of two counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon. He faces life in prison if convicted of two counts each of first-degree murder and kidnapping, charges the jury deadlocked on during his first trial.
Attorneys are now giving their opening statements.
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