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Thread: Rafael Toirac-Aguilera Gets LWOP in 2009 FL Murder of Retired LEO Robert Yee

  1. #21
    Rojo
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    Any word? Thanks....

  2. #22
    Jan
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    12/09/2015 report re: Trial date set for 01/07/2016 at 09:01
    https://www2.miami-dadeclerk.com/cji...2fm9hEvA%3d%3d

  3. #23
    Administrator Heidi's Avatar
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    Juice bottle silencer key clue in murder trial of retired Miami police captain

    Wrapped in black tape, the Tropicana orange juice bottle appeared to have been used as a homemade gun silencer. It was discovered at a Miami River marina, next to the bullet-riddled body of retired Miami Police Capt. Robert Yee.

    Who wielded the bottle is now the central question unfolding before Miami-Dade jurors.

    For prosecutors, forensic evidence found on the bottle identified a a New Jersey man, Rafael Toirac-Aguilera, whom they believe drove a rented silver Toyota Corolla to Miami to assassinate Yee.

    “He couldn’t conceal his DNA and fingerprints on his homemade silencer,” Miami-Dade prosecutor Chris Flanagan told jurors during the opening day of Toirac-Aguilera’s trial for first-degree murder.

    Defense lawyers acknowledged Toirac-Aguilera was visiting Miami that day in July 2009 – but only for a quick weekend getaway to look for work. They said no witnesses placed the bottle in Toirac-Aguilera’s hands, and suggested the real killer must have unwittingly picked up the discarded Tropicana product.

    “A piece of plastic, a piece of garbage perhaps, but nothing more than proof that Rafael likes orange juice,” Miami-Dade Assistant Public Defender Stacy Marczak told jurors.

    She added: “The reason he is charged is not because there is any other evidence. It all boils down to this bottle.”

    The trial of Toirac-Aguilera comes nearly seven years after a mysterious gunman gunned down Yee at the Hurricane Cove Marina on the Miami River, a crime that received widespread headlines at the time.

    Toirac-Aguilera, 39, is charged with first-degree murder.

    Yee spent 25 years as a Miami cop, retiring in the mid-1990s after a decorated career that included leading the department’s horse mounted patrol. Back in 2009, he had returned to work, overseeing daily operations at the self-service marina of Northwest North River Drive.

    The 61-year-old was shot dead while riding in the golf cart he used to patrol the grounds.

    Prosecutors did not specify who would have dispatched Toirac-Aguilera, but suggested it might have come as retaliation. Yee frequently informed federal law enforcement about possible drug and human-smuggling operations at the marina.

    “Once a cop, always a cop,” Flanagan said. “He was just doing his job. And he paid the ultimate price.”

    The case remained unsolved for several months until DNA from the lip of the bottle matched Toirac-Aguilera, 39, who after the crime was later jailed in a domestic-violence case in New Jersey.

    Miami homicide detectives flew to New Jersey to interview the jailed Toirac-Aguilera, who insisted that he had not visited South Florida since around 2000.

    But his girlfriend, Tania Montero, 45, testified Tuesday that the two drove to Miami in July 2009 in a rented silver Toyota Corolla. “He said he had been offered a job in Miami,” Montero said.

    In a cooler in the car for the road trip: orange juice.

    “Who liked orange juice?” prosecutor Gail Levine said.

    “Rafael,” Montero replied.

    She testified that two stayed with his friend in Miami. The morning of the shooting, Toirac-Aguilera took the rental car and left her behind for hours on end. He claimed he was looking for work.

    The next day, Toirac-Aguilera and Montero hurriedly left Miami to return to New Jersey in the silver Corolla, she said.

    During testimony Tuesday, that rented silver Corolla emerged as a key detail for prosecutors.

    One boat repairman, working on a boat called “Pastability” because the owner owned an Italian food-service company, testified he saw a silver Toyota Corolla drive up to Yee seconds in the marina before the shots rang out.

    “I was too far to see the face of the person” in the car, the repairman testified.

    A hot-dog vendor from outside marina also testified she saw a silver Corolla strangely parked outside the marina, then cruise by as she sold Yee a chicken sandwich for lunch.

    “He said he had also seen it and it was strange to him to,” the vendor, Maria Medranos, told jurors.

    The car later went into the marina. Shots rang out. The Corolla immediately left the marina, the vendor said.

    The trial is expected to last several weeks before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez.

    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...#storylink=cpy
    An uninformed opponent is a dangerous opponent.

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  4. #24
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mike's Avatar
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    Jurors convict Jersey man in murder of ex-Miami police captain

    Investigators may never know for sure who ordered the assassination of retired Miami police captain Robert Yee.

    But DNA and fingerprints on an orange-juice bottle convinced a jury on Friday that Rafael Toirac-Aguilera was the gunman who fatally shot the former cop at a Miami River marina in July 2009.

    When the court clerk read the guilty verdict, Yee’s family sobbed in relief. “Thank you, guys,” his widow, Maricel Yee, whispered as jurors – a few of them also teary – filed out of the courtroom.

    Toirac-Aguilera, 39, remained stoned face as the judge officially declared him guilty. A sentencing hearing will be held sometime in the coming weeks but the outcome is already decided. Under Florida law, a conviction for first-degree murder carries a mandatory life prison sentence.

    “Justice has been served and now my father can rest in peace,” said daughter Debbie Guzman, herself a police officer with the city of Doral.

    “Robert is resting now,” Maricel Yee said.

    The verdict came after six hours of deliberations, and capped a legal case that had taken seven years to finally go before a jury. For lawyers, observers and jurors, the case was packed with intrigue.

    Yee spent 25 years as a Miami cop, retiring in the mid-1990s after a decorated career that included leading the department’s horse mounted patrol. Back in 2009, he had returned to work, overseeing daily operations at the self-service Hurricane Cove marina on Northwest North River Drive.

    A gunman in a silver car pulled up and shot the 61-year-old as he was riding in the golf cart he used to patrol the grounds.

    Exactly why Yee was murdered remains a mystery. Prosecutors believe the killer was dispatched by someone upset that the retired officer was telling federal agents about illegal activities at the marina.

    The key clue was the Tropicana orange-juice bottle, wrapped in black tape that had been used as a homemade silence. The bottle blew off the barrel of the gun and landed near Yee’s body.

    Finger and palm prints, plus DNA on the lip of the bottle, matched Toirac-Aguilera – a New Jersey man who had been arrested in a domestic-violence case there a few months after the shooting.

    At trial, Toirac-Aguilera’s ex-girlfriend testified that in July 2009, the two drove a rented Silver Toyota Corolla to Miami. She believed he was coming for some unspecified work. Multiple eye witnesses told police that the gunman drove a silver Corolla.

    Prosecutors said phone records also showed Toirac-Aguilera made repeated calls to “burner” phones, disposable cells likely used by the murder’s mastermind.

    “He planned it with whoever he planned it,” Levine said. “I don’t have prove the motive. I have to prove he did it with premeditation.”

    When detectives confronted Toirac-Aguilera with the DNA evidence, he repeatedly insisted he was never in Florida, prosecutor Gail Levine told the jury in closing arguments on Wednesday.

    “He gives absolutely no reasonable hypothesis of innocence,” Levine said. “His lies do him in!”

    Toirac-Aguilera’s defense team insisted that no witnesses placed Toirac-Aguilera at the scene and the DNA doesn’t prove he pulled the trigger. They insisted cops rushed to solve the murder of a fallen police officer, which was featured on the national cable reality show The First 48.

    “The state has gotten wrong. The police got it wrong,” defense lawyer Stacy Marczak told jurors. “It’s not Rafael Toirac-Aguilera who committed this murder.”

    Toirac-Aguilera’s defense said he was only in town to look for work and visit his girlfriend’s mother. They suggest the homemade silencer was just garbage, picked up by someone else who used it to commit the murder.

    “It’s not so outlandish or impossible or improbable that someone could have done this,” Marczak said. “This bottle is a moveable object.”

    http://www.miamiherald.com/news/loca...e67745502.html
    "There is a point in the history of a society when it becomes so pathologically soft and tender that among other things it sides even with those who harm it, criminals, and does this quite seriously and honestly. Punishing somehow seems unfair to it, and it is certain that imagining ‘punishment’ and ‘being supposed to punish’ hurts it, arouses fear in it." Friedrich Nietzsche

  5. #25
    Senior Member CnCP Legend JLR's Avatar
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    April 22, 2016

    Man sentenced to life in prison for murder of retired Miami Police captain

    MIAMI (WSVN) -- A South Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison without parole for the murder of a retired Miami Police captain.

    He received his sentence Friday. According to police, 33-year-old Rafael Toirac-Aguilera killed retired Miami Police Captain, Robert Yee, in 2009 at the Hurricane Cove Marina.

    Sixty-one-year-old Yee, who served the City of Miami for 26 years, was working as a security guard at the marina when he was shot and killed in broad daylight.

    Yee, a beloved father and grandfather, left behind a family who, according to his daughter, will continue to live their lives in his honor. His daughter Debbie Guzman is a police officer now and said her children will be following in their grandfather's footsteps, as well. "We've waited for a long time for this," she said about the sentencing. "Not only did he brutally murder my father, but he's caused so much pain for my family."

    DNA recovered from an orange juice bottle on the scene linked Aguilera to the crime. According to the findings, the bottle was used as a gun silencer by Aguilera. "We judged him in man's law, but he's still got another judgment day coming to him," said Miami Police Chief Rodolfo Llanes.

    "As an officer, he's helped many, many people, and now it's our time to help him," said Guzman in 2009.

    Investigators think Aguilera planned a "hit" on Yee because he might have had information on illegal activity at the marina where he worked. However, that does not matter anymore because Aguilera is going to spend the rest of his life in prison. "I have no sympathy for you, sir," said Judge Marisa Tinkler Mendez. "The court is mandated to sentence you to a term of imprisonment for life."

    Aguilera was found guilty of first-degree murder earlier this month.

    While his sentencing brings Yee's family a sigh of relief, their pain is still very much there. "Justice has been done," said his widowed wife, Maricel Yee. "We're at peace."

    In court, the widow read her deceased husband's last words to her. "His last words, were as always, 'Be careful out there, I'll be home soon. I love you.' That exemplary father is no longer here, and all we have are the memories."

    http://www.wsvn.com/story/31793582/m...&mview=desktop

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