Ex-Colombian officer pleads guilty to plotting to kill Haiti’s president, agrees to help feds

In late June of 2021, a retired Colombian army officer met with a group of men in Haiti to discuss removing Haitian President Jovenel Moïse by force, including a plot to assassinate him.

During the secret gathering, Germán Alejandro Rivera Garcia, aka “Colonel Mike,” received directions in a video call from a fellow Colombian in South Florida — who happened to be an FBI informant — that Rivera should follow the instructions of another man attending the meeting in Haiti, according to court records.

That unnamed man “then told Rivera and another another co-conspirator that the president would be assassinated as part of the operation,” according to a factual statement filed in Miami federal court as part of Rivera’s guilty plea on murder conspiracy charges Thursday.

Rivera and the co-conspirator, James Solages, a Haitian American from South Florida, “relayed that information to other members of the conspiracy,” including another Haitian American, Joseph Vincent, and a member of Rivera’s Colombian commando group, Mario Antonio PalaciosPalacios.

The exchange occurred within two weeks of the July 7, 2021, assassination of Moïse by a group of ex-Colombian soldiers, U.S. authorities say, marking a strategic shift from kidnapping Haiti’s leader to killing him at his home in a hillside suburb outside the Port-au-Prince capital.

Over the past year, 11 defendants have been charged with conspiring to kill Haiti’s president or with playing a supporting role in an FBI-led case prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Florida. Among those charged are: Rivera, who pleaded guilty Thursday, Solages, Vincent and Palacios.

Rivera’s factual statement provides fresh details of meetings among co-conspirators in Haiti and South Florida that led to the shocking assassination of Moïse, which has stoked unprecedented turmoil in the Caribbean island.

According to the factual statement, Rivera began meeting in person in Haiti and by video conference in South Florida with the co-conspirators in February 2021. At various meetings, “the conspirators discussed proposed methods for carrying out the operation and the need to acquire weapons to facilitate the operation,” the statement says.

The meetings held in South Florida were attended by several co-conspirators charged in the assassination case, including Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, the FBI informant who worked for a Miami-area security firm. He allegedly helped recruit some of the Colombian commandos and directed Rivera to follow the instructions of another conspirator regarding the plot to assassinate Haiti’s leader. Others present at the South Florida meetings were: Antonio Intriago, the head of the security firm, Counter Terrorist Unit; Christian Sanon, a Haitian American physician who aspired to replace Moïse as president; and Walter Veintemilla, a South Florida businessman who helped finance the operation, and Solages.

Rivera also attended operational meetings in Haiti with Intriago, Solages, Sanon, Palacios, Haitian businessman Rodolphe Jaar and former Haitian Senator Joseph Joel John. The latter two men have also been charged in the assassination case in Miami.

At Thursday’s plea hearing in Miami federal court, Rivera admitted he learned about the plan to switch from kidnapping to killing Moïse two weeks before the deadly mission was carried out, and that he was present during the assassination of Haiti’s leader at Moïse’s home along with other Colombian commandos and Haitian-American men charged in the South Florida case.

U.S. District Judge Jose Martinez asked whether he believed prosecutors could prove these facts at trial and if they were true.

Rivera’s response: “Yes, your honor.”

Rivera formally pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to kill Haiti’s president, providing that support, and conspiring to kill or kidnap a person outside the United States. He now faces up to life in prison on each of the three counts at his sentencing set for Oct. 27 before Judge Martinez. But Rivera might be able to avoid a life sentence if prosecutors Monica Castro and Andrea Goldbarg recommend lesser punishment based on his cooperation under the terms of his plea agreement.

A fourth charge, accusing Rivera of carrying out a conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, will be dropped as part of his plea agreement.

Rivera, represented by attorney Mark LeVine, is expected to be a critical witness for the FBI-led case, which so far has resulted in charges against 11 defendants from South Florida, Haiti and Colombia.

The other defendant who pleaded guilty to the murder conspiracy is Jaar, 51, a previously convicted drug trafficker in the United States who was sentenced in June to life in prison but is hoping to get his prison term decreased with cooperation. A businessman with dual Haitian and Chilean citizenship, Jaar admitted to providing weapons, lodging and money in the conspiracy to assassinate Haiti’s president. He pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiring to provide material support, providing material support, and conspiring to kidnap and kill Moïse.

READ MORE: How a Miami plot to oust a president led to a murder in Haiti

Separate Haitian, Colombian and U.S. investigations into Moïse’s death were launched shortly after the assault that left the 53-year-old president with 12 bullet wounds and his wife, Martine, seriously wounded. More than 40 people have been jailed in Haiti, including 18 Colombians, as well as members of the Haitian presidential guard accused of taking bribes to stand down or not show up to work on the day Moïse was killed.

The deadly plot revolved around suspects collaborating in South Florida, Haiti and Colombia to kidnap and then kill Haiti’s leader, with the goal of replacing him with a new president and obtaining Haitian government contracts, according to authorities. So far, however, no one has been identified as the mastermind who orchestrated Moïse’s killing.

The investigation escalated in February with the transfer of Rivera and three Haitian Americans to U.S. custody.

Rivera and two Haitian Americans were accused of helping coordinate a failed kidnapping of Moïse to remove him from office upon his return from a state visit to Turkey in June of 2021. The same three were also accused of conspiring in a final plan to kill him at his home in the hillside suburbs of Port-au-Prince the following month.

Those suspects are: Solages, 37, who quit his job at a South Florida nursing home to go work for a Miami-area security firm linked to the plot to remove Moïse from office; Vincent, 57, a former Drug Enforcement Administration confidential informant who lived in South Florida; and Rivera, the retired Colombian colonel who is one of the leaders of the deadly attack.

Also transferred to Miami: Sanon, 64, a Haitian doctor and pastor who split his time between the United States and his Caribbean homeland and wanted to replace Moïse as president. Sanon, who was not implicated in the main conspiracy case to kidnap and kill Haiti’s president but faces related charges, fell out of favor with the group as a possible successor to Moïse in the weeks before his assassination.

The FBI probe, assisted by Homeland Security Investigations, has also focused on Intriago, the Miami-area security firm operator who interacted with some of the suspects and has been charged in the murder conspiracy. Intriago’s attorney has maintained that he provided only bodyguard services for Sanon through his Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) Security as part of Sanon’s presidential aspirations and knew nothing about a plot to kill Moïse.

Intriago’s associate at CTU, Pretel Ortiz, who had been working as an FBI informant before the Haitian president’s death, was also charged in the murder conspiracy. Pretel Ortiz, a Colombian national and U.S. permanent resident of Miami, played a vital role in helping recruit some of the Colombian commandos for the deadly mission, according to court records.

The FBI has acknowledged that Pretel Ortiz was an informant for the bureau in South Florida but said he was not operating under its direction when he allegedly joined the operation to kill Haiti’s leader.