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Thread: Nelson Ivan Serrano - Florida

  1. #1
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    Nelson Ivan Serrano - Florida






    Summary of Offense:

    In 2007, Serrano was found guilty of murdering four at Erie Manufacturing in Bartow in 1997. Those who were slain were George Patisso, Jr., 27, George Gonsalves, Frank Dosso and Diane Dosso Patisso. It is the worst mass murder in Polk County history.

    Serrano was sentenced to death in Polk County on June 26, 2007.

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    April 6, 2009

    MIAMI – Ecuador's government demanded on Monday the return of a man on Florida's death row for killing four people and said he should have never been taken from the South American country, calling it a "kidnapping."

    Ecuadorean officials have decried the treatment of former businessman and dual U.S. and Ecuador citizen Nelson Serrano Saenz, claiming he was beaten and secretly held in a dog kennel. The officials sent a letter to the U.S. State Department last month but said they haven't yet received a response.

    "The issue is not his guilt or innocence," said Deputy Ecuadorean Interior Minister Franco Sanchez. "This is called a kidnapping, not an arrest."

    Ecuador has no death penalty and will not extradite fugitives who face the punishment in other countries. U.S. authorities maintained Serrano's status as a U.S. citizen allowed them to bring him back.

    Serrano, 70, was convicted of killing four people in a Polk County factory in 1997 over a business relationship gone sour. He was living in Ecuador when he was arrested in 2002.

    Ecuador maintains Florida officials bribed police there to help capture Serrano, and that he was kept overnight at the Quito airport in a dog kennel to avoid detection. They also say he was beaten so badly a flight attendant tried to stop him from boarding the plane until an assistant state attorney and a law enforcement agent from Florida intervened.

    Florida Department of Law Enforcement agent Tommy Ray, who brought Serrano back to Florida, called the allegations absurd.

    "There was no bribe," he told The Associated Press on Monday. Ray said he and others gave Ecuadorean police about $300 to reimburse them for gas, meals and documentation. He also said Serrano was injured only when he tried to flee at the last minute and he was kept overnight in an office, not a dog kennel.

    The human rights arm of the Organization of American States, to which both countries belong, concluded the Ecuadorean government illegally detained and deported Serrano. The commission has since recommended the case to the Inter-American Human Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica.

    Ecuador plans to present its letter to the Florida Supreme Court, where Serrano's appeal will likely be heard later this year. The government also has hired Miami-based immigration attorney Marcia Silvers to replace Serrano's court-appointed lawyer.

    Sanchez said it has taken the Ecuadorean government so long to press for Serrano's release because it was not until a new administration took over the country two years ago that cases like Serrano's were reviewed. He said his government is still investigating the actions of several police and customs officials involved in the case. Ecuador also has enacted new regulations to clarify its deportation procedures.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090406/...ple_slayings_3

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    August 31, 2010

    Death row inmate appeals sentence in Bartow shootings

    TALLAHASSEE - A businessman with dual U.S.-Ecuadorian citizenship is appealing his death sentence and four murder convictions to the Florida Supreme Court.

    A lawyer hired by Ecuador's government Tuesday argued Nelson Serrano's conviction should be reversed on several grounds but focused on alleged prosecutorial misconduct.

    Two Ecuadorian officials were on hand. Serrano also claims he was illegally "kidnapped" from the South American nation in 2002.

    Ecuador does not allow the extradition of fugitives facing the death penalty. The state contends his return to Florida was legal because he is a U.S. citizen.

    Serrano was convicted of shooting to death his former business partner George Gonsalves, 69; Frank Dosso, 35, and daughter, Diane Patisso, 28; and George Patisso, 26, who was Diane Patisso's husband. All were shot inside the Erie Manufacturing building in Bartow just after 5 p.m. on Dec. 3, 1997.

    Serrano, Gonsalves and Phil Dosso had been partners in Erie Manufacturing and Garment Conveyor Systems. The companies worked together to provide equipment and movement systems for businesses that worked with lots of clothing.

    The partners had a falling-out over money and control of the businesses in the months before the killings. The other two partners pushed Serrano out of both businesses in June 1997.

    http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/aug...bartow-shooti/

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's Florida Supreme Court orders, Serrano's conviction and death sentence were affirmed.

    45-page opinion here

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    High court affirms death sentences in 1997 Polk murders

    The Florida Supreme Court today upheld the death sentences imposed on Nelson Serrano for killing four people in December 1997 at his former Bartow business.

    Serrano, 72, appealed his convictions on several grounds, including challenging the circumstantial evidence used by prosecutors.

    But the high court rejected those claims and said the death penalty was proportionate because of the total circumstances of the case.

    It took only 45 seconds in June 2007 for a Polk County circuit judge to send Serrano to death row after his convictions following a two-month trial.

    Serrano was found guilty of killing George Gonsalves, Frank Dosso, Diane Patisso and George Patisso at the Erie Manufacturing and Garment Conveyor Systems plant.

    The three men were shot in the head, execution-style, with a .22-caliber pistol. Diane Patisso was shot with a 32.-caliber. The weapons were never found, but testimony showed Serrano owned multiple .22- and .32-caliber firearms.

    Gonsalves had been one of Serrano's business partners. The other victims were the son, daughter and son-in-law of Serrano's other ex-business partner, Phil Dosso.

    Phil Dosso and his wife found the bodies after becoming worried when Frank Dosso was late for his twin daughters' birthday party.

    Serrano was arrested in his native country of Ecuador in August 2002 and returned to Florida to stand trial.

    Testimony showed the partners had a falling-out over money and control of the businesses in the months before the killings. Serrano was pushed out in June 1997.

    Prosecutors said Serrano was enraged and set out to kill Gonsalves. The other three victims may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    Serrano did not testify at trial but maintained his innocence. He claimed he was in an Atlanta hotel suffering from migraines at the time of the killings and blamed the slayings on a Mafia hit-man named John.

    But detectives said they found a fingerprint on an Orlando International Airport parking stub that placed Serrano in Orlando on the day of the murders, rather than in Atlanta.

    http://www2.tbo.com/content/2011/mar...news-breaking/

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    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    In today's United States Supreme Court orders, Serrano's petition for a writ of certiorari was DENIED.

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    Member Member giallohunter's Avatar
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    Another killer featured in 48 Hours on CBS online streaming.

    To Catch a Killer

  8. #8
    Senior Member CnCP Legend FFM's Avatar
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    Appeals aren't even close to done.

    He's ancient.... 75 years old.

  9. #9
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Polk man convicted in quadruple murder wants new trial

    A man found guilty of killing four people execution-style in Polk County more than decade ago is fighting for a new trial.

    Nelson Serrano was sentenced to death for shooting and killing four people at a manufacturing plant in Bartow.

    Frank Dosso, Diane Patisso, George Patisso, and George Gonsalves were shot and killed in 1997. A jury recommended the death penalty for Serrano in October 2006 after he was convicted of the murders.

    Serrano says his attorney did a bad job at the trial, so another attorney is now representing him in his appeal.

    Serrano is looking for a new trial because of several issues:

    He says the evidence against him was circumstantial.

    He also says that investigators committed outrageous acts against him.

    He says he was kidnapped from Equador where he had retired; officials say he was extradited.

    Serrano also says there should have been a change in venue because so many people knew about the killings.

    Serrano was convicted of murdering his business partner, and three other people in a Bartow warehouse 16 years ago. He has been on death row since then.

    http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/2...#ixzz31XIBKOkV
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  10. #10
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    Lawyer From Earlier Trial Testifies in Nelson Serrano's Appeal

    By Suzie Schottelkotte
    THE LEDGER

    BARTOW - Orlando lawyer Cheney Mason, who represented condemned murderer Nelson Serrano in his 2006 trial, testified Monday in Serrano's appeal that he didn't run further tests on a plastic glove and unidentified fingerprints from the murder scene because he didn't want to help the state's case.

    Mason said initial testing failed to produce evidence implicating Serrano, and he wasn't convinced additional testing would help his client.

    "I'd prefer to have that hole empty," said Mason, who gained national fame as co-counsel in the 2011 Casey Anthony trial in Orlando.

    Serrano's appellate lawyers, Roy Black and Marcia Silvers of Miami, are arguing their client should get a new trial because his trial counsel made a litany of mistakes.

    Additional testing on the glove during the appeal revealed it didn't contain Serrano's DNA, but similar testing showed an unidentified fingerprint on a paper found near one victim's body was traced back to him. Since he had worked in the building, prosecutors said the print had limited value.

    Serrano, 75, was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1997 murders of one business partner, 69-year-old George Gonsalves, and the son, daughter and son-in-law of another partner, Phil Dosso, at the offices of Erie Manufacturing and Garment Conveyor Systems in Bartow.

    Gonsalves — along with Frank Dosso, 35, Diane Dosso Patisso, 27, and George Patisso Jr., 26 — was gunned down just after the close of business on Dec. 3, 1997.

    It remains the worst mass murder in Polk County history.

    Dosso and Gonsalves had ousted Serrano from the business five months earlier.

    Serrano initially said he was in Atlanta on business when the murders took place, but authorities broke his alibi in 2001 when they found his fingerprint on an Orlando International Airport parking garage ticket time-stamped the day of the killings.

    Investigators maintained he returned to Florida that day using aliases to book flights and rental cars. Serrano, who had moved to his native Ecuador, was deported and returned to Florida in August 2002 to face the murder charges.

    During the 2006 trial, Serrano's lawyers argued it wasn't feasible for him to leave his Atlanta hotel about noon and fly to Orlando, drive to Bartow, commit the crimes, fly from Tampa back to Atlanta and be seen on surveillance video in a hotel lobby about 10 p.m.

    On Monday, Black asked Mason why the defense team didn't attempt to re-create that timeline. Mason said he didn't know, adding he relied on the opinions of others who said there wasn't enough time for Serrano to squeeze those events into 10 hours.

    "I find that improbable and unbelievable," Mason said Monday.

    Last week, Mason's co-counsel, Bartow lawyer Robert Norgard, testified the timeline was tight, but he thought it was "doable."

    After the 2006 trial, Mason was quoted saying he'd give $1 million to anyone who could make the timeline work, though Monday he said he was misquoted.

    One man said he made it work, and he filed a lawsuit against Mason for refusing to pay the $1 million.

    In that lawsuit, which is still pending on appeal in the federal 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, Mason hired an aviation expert to test the timeline just in Atlanta.

    On Monday, Mason said he wasn't certain why he hired an expert in his own case but didn't pursue it when defending Serrano. "One of (the factors) was financial," he said, adding the state was funding Serrano's investigative costs.

    In other testimony Monday, Black questioned Francisco Serrano, the defendant's son and a former Erie Manufacturing employee, about a piece of Colonial Steel note paper found in Gonsalves' office near Diane Patisso's body.

    It bore Nelson Serrano's fingerprint, but the younger Serrano said Erie hadn't transacted business with Colonial Steel since about 1991, suggesting the paper was in Gonsalves' office before Serrano was ousted in July 1997.

    http://www.theledger.com/article/201...1410?p=1&tc=pg

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