#647: Hit man guilty of killing radio broadcasters (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:nozier@tradewind.net

Published Sunday, October 3, 1999, in the Miami Herald 
 Hit man guilty of killing radio broadcasters by FRANCES ROBLES

 A hit man already in prison for life now faces the electric chair after
being found guilty Saturday of the 1991 murders of two Haitian radio
broadcasters. The jury that convicted Billy Alexander of two counts of
first-degree murder Saturday will meet again to determine whether he
should die for the contract killings of broadcasters Jean-Claude Olivier
and Fritz Dor.  Alexander's defense attorney, Scott Sakin, said his
client maintains his innocence. ``He's a changed, religious man,'' Sakin
said. ``He's profoundly religious and had hoped that he would have been
found not guilty. Unfortunately, the Lord was not looking down on him.
We're convinced the jury will see fit to spare his life when
 they see he is a redeemed person.''  Olivier and Dor, prosecutors said,
were killed because they criticized a local record store owner who was
sponsoring a concert. The journalists believed the concert proceeds were
heading back to Haiti to fund drugs and guns. ``These people were
exercising their constitutional rights,'' Assistant State
 Attorney Reid Rubin said. ``For that -- for money -- he shot them in
cold blood. Both of them.'' But the record store owner was never
charged, and the key witnesses who said Alexander got $2,000 for the hit
were co-conspirators who received deals from the state for their
testimony. There was no physical evidence to tie Alexander, 29,
 who is already serving a life sentence on an unrelated murder.
 Alexander ``only talks about damning things to people close to him,''
Rubin said. ``Let's face it: [the witnesses] are thugs and criminals.''
 Sakin blamed the prosecution's star witness, Hitler Fleurinord, for the
killing. ``You can put hot coals under his feet and bamboo under his
fingernails, and he will never ever admit he was the shooter,'' Sakin
said. ``He's a hardened criminal. He talks about killing people like
it's nothing.''