By The Star Staff
A jury of nine women and three men will decide the fate of the six individuals accused of killing Maurice Spagnoletti, a banker at the now defunct Doral Bank who was killed on June 15, 2011.
On Dec. 6, 2018, a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico returned a superseding indictment against six defendants charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances and possessing firearms in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime.
Four of those individuals, Luis Carmona Bernacet, a.k.a. “Canito Cumbre”; Yadiel Serrano Canales, a.k.a. “Motombo”; Rolando Rivera Solis; and Alex Burgos Amaro, a.k.a. “Yogui,” were charged with the use of a firearm concerning a drug trafficking crime resulting in the murder of Spagnoletti.
In the killing of Spagnoletti, the grand jury charged defendants Carmona Bernacet, Serrano Canales, Rivera Solis and Burgos Amaro with “aiding and abetting each other, with counseling, commanding, inducing and procuring each other to carry a firearm during and concerning a drug trafficking crime, and in the course of that crime, causing the death” of Spagnoletti.
According to published reports from 2018, Rivera Solis owned a cleaning company that had received millions of dollars under a maintenance contract with the bank that Spagnoletti had canceled as part of an investigation because he found the amount outlandish and suspected it was being used for money-laundering.
Spagnoletti, 56, who worked as Doral’s executive vice president of banking and mortgage, was shot several times while driving his Lexus LS-430 on the De Diego Expressway in the vicinity of the Minillas tunnel.
The selected jurors were picked from a group of 58 people.
The trial, which began Monday, will last for five weeks, according to U.S. District Court Judge Francisco Besosa, who added that 47 witnesses may be providing testimony.
One of them will be Marisa Spagnoletti, the widow of the bank executive.
Also testifying will be officials from the Institute of Forensic Sciences, agents from the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Office of Homeland Security Investigations and one agent from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Burgos Amaro was absent, according to Tele11, since the case against him will be heard individually in the summer due to a health problem suffered by the mother of the defendant’s lawyer, Anita Hill.
The lawyer announced that the individual will not be a government witness or plead guilty.