Ecuador asks DeSantis for clemency for convicted murderer Nelson Serrano, who's near death

The country of Ecuador has asked in a letter to Gov. Ron DeSantis for clemency for death row inmate Nelson Serrano, who is in imminent risk of death from a terminal illness.

“This gesture would not only reflect the deep bond between our nations but also exemplify our mutual commitment to humanitarian principles and family values,” wrote Soledad Peña Plaza, an Ecuadorian embassy official in Washington, D.C.

The letter, obtained by The Ledger from a Serrano family member, came after the family and Serrano's attorney, Gregory W. Eisenmenger, requested the appeal for clemency by the embassy.

The family of the former Bartow businessman and convicted murderer wants to be at his bedside before he dies, his son said on Thursday by phone. They have only been given a one-hour visitation since he left prison because that was all the prison warden would allow.

Serrano, 85, was sentenced to death on June 26, 2007, for killing four people at Bartow's Erie Manufacturing in 1997, according to Department of Corrections and previous Ledger reports.

At the time, it was the worst mass killing in Polk County. Serrano remains an inmate at Union Correctional Institution in Raiford, its website shows.

Serrano is an Ecuadorian-American, or dual national. He was removed from his home country and brought to Polk County to face the charges against him about three years after the killings, according to a Prime documentary about his case.

According to his son, Francisco, Serrano was transported from prison to the hospital on July 10 after a lack of attention to his medical condition by the prison staff for weeks.

“According to the inmates inside of the Union Correctional on death row, my father sat motionless for almost an entire period of two week in his wheelchair soiling himself with no attention and not eating, even after the prisoners begged the guards and the nurses day after day to attend to my father,” he said. “No one listened or lifted a finger.

"It wasn’t until Wednesday morning that I got a call from an inmate inside death row to tell me about my father’s condition that I was able to raise the alarms through our attorneys and then through the jail,” he said. “Then that night, they ended up deciding to send him to Jacksonville Memorial.”

Peña Plaza’s letter also cited Serrano's health.

“Recently, he has been diagnosed with a large brain tumor and multiple blood clots in his lungs. He is currently bedridden, reliant on a ventilator and feeding tube, and is expected to pass away imminently,” the letter said.

After being alerted, Eisenmenger said he quickly set an appointment to visit Serrano at the prison in Raiford and ask the warden to allow Serrano to get medical care, but he had already been transferred. He has not been allowed to visit his client at the hospital.

He said Serrano has been in decline for most of the five years he has been his attorney.

A long, twisting legal drama

Serrano was convicted of the execution-style killings of his former business partner in Erie Manufacturing, George Gonzalves, 69, as well as Frank Dosso, 35, Diane Dosso Patisso, 27, and George Patisso, 26. They were the son, daughter and son-in-law of another business partner, Phil Dosso.

Both Nelson Serrano and his son have maintained that prosecutors convicted the wrong man. By phone, Francisco Serrano said a New York mafia family from Staten Island carried out the murders.

“They knew that,” the son said of prosecutors in Polk County. “They all knew that it's all in the evidence, everything’s there.”

According to Melanie Kalmanson, who writes the Substack "Tracking Florida Death Penalty" and first broke the story about Serrano’s transfer to the hospital and the appeal from Ecuador, Serrano's sentence has been through several appeals in Florida as state death penalty sentencing laws have changed. 

“Nelson Serrano was sentenced to death for crimes that occurred in 1997 following the jury’s recommendations for death by a vote of 9-3 on four counts of first-degree murder,” Kalmanson wrote. “He was in his late 50s at the time of the crime and has always maintained his innocence.

“The Florida Supreme Court originally affirmed his sentences of death on direct appeal in 2011. In 2017, Serrano was granted a new penalty phase in light of Hurst. His new penalty phase remains pending.

Most recently, Circuit Judge J. Kevin Abdoney allowed Serrano to get a new pair of reading glasses, The Ledger reported in May 2023.

'Keeps getting pushed down the road'

Eisenmenger said in addition to appealing to Ecuador for clemency, he has reached out the prosecutors to dismiss the case against Serrano based on his terminal illness, but they have not responded.

Under precedent from the Hurst case, his client was due to receive another penalty phase trial before Abdoney, but none has been scheduled, he said.

"I've been trying to get it scheduled for years," Eisenmenger said. "Every time I have a status conference, I have asked to have it scheduled and the state always objects and it keeps getting pushed down the road.

"It's clear he is not physically able to go to trial," he said.

"Unfortunately his incompetence to proceed to trial doesn't appear to be medically curable, so the correct legal thing would be a dismissal," he said. "Whether the state is going to make me jump through all these hoops (filing motions) or whether they just confirm my information and do the appropriate thing, I don't know."

During status conferences more than once, Eisenmenger has said the state has been dragging out the trial knowing Serrano's health was in decline. A trial date had been set twice but delayed by the state over his objections.

"I think that has been the state's goal right along, is to continue knowing his deteriorating medical condition over the last five years; and continuing to delay this rather than giving us the opportunity to demonstrate in court that the death penalty is inappropriate in this case, they have just decided to drag it out in hopes that what ultimately did happen did happen," Eisenmenger said.

With a new trial, his defense had wanted to introduce new evidence such as a third firearm collected by law enforcement that could suggest at least one other shooter at the crime scene, he said. Because of strategies by both the defense and prosecution, the jury was never told about the third firearm. But during a new trial, that was another piece of evidence that would have been presented, he said.

Regarding the theory that the murders were a mob hit, he said he was not the attorney during the original trial but was aware that such a lead in the case was never investigated and only disclosed to the defense five days before trial.

A petition 'alleging violations of his human rights'

To bolster the case for clemency, the letter from Ecuador also said a petition is pending with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, “alleging violations of his (Serrano's) human rights by the United States of America.”

The IACHR concluded that the United States is responsible for violating articles protecting his “life, liberty, and security” and rights to a “fair trial” and “due process.”

The letter says the international body “recommended that Mr. Serrano be granted effective relief, including a review of his trial and sentence and pecuniary compensation,” in a report attached to the letter.

The Ledger was unsuccessful in attempts to reach the governor’s office and the warden at Union Correctional for comment on the status of Serrano family visits.

In the lead-up to DeSantis' unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination for president, he signed six execution warrants. According to the USA TODAY Network-Florida, that was the most in any year in Florida since 2014. Prior to that, DeSantis had signed just two execution warrants in 2019.

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Ecuador seeks clemency for convicted Bartow murderer Nelson Serrano