The
teenaged son of a Canadian diplomat pleaded guilty Friday to reduced charges of
third-degree felony murder related to a double killing in Miami even though
he had no part in the gunplay that left his older brother dead.
In exchange for his plea, Marc Wabafiyebazu, 15, of Ottawa, will have to
serve six months in a boot camp starting next week, followed by 10 months of
modified house arrest and a maximum eight years' probation.
If he completes the sentence without incident, the teen will have no
criminal conviction registered against him.
"Marc has his future," his mother Roxanne Dube, Canada's formerconsul general in Miami, told The Canadian Press. "He's going to be
saved."
Wabafiyebazu, Dube's younger son, has been in custody since last March
30, when he was arrested outside a Miami apartment in which his 18-year-old
brother Jean Wabafiyebazu and another teen were shot dead.
Prosecutors did not allege the younger sibling had any direct role in the
bloodshed, apparently the result of his brother's attempt to rob a drug dealer
of 800 grams of marijuana. However, they maintained Wabafiyebazu had known of
the scheme when they drove in their mom's car to what police called the "drug
den."
As a result, under Florida's felony law, they charged the teen as an
adult with multiple offences, including felony first-degree murder, which
carries a minimum 40 years in prison.
Under the plea deal approved by the state attorney, however, the prosecution
made a rare concession to reduce the two main charges he faced to third-degree
murder. Wabafiyebazu also pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated
battery and attempted armed robbery.
"Essentially, he is paying the price for Jean," Dube said.
"He is also pleading to the murder of his own brother."
Wabafiyebazu's two co-accused, including the drug dealer who fled the
scene with his drugs and a handgun, were granted bail soon after also being
charged with lesser felony-murder crimes. Prosecutors agree to drop those
charges in exchange for their commitment to testify against Wabafiyebazu and a
guilty plea.
Last fall, both co-accused pleaded guilty to minor drug charges and were
sentenced to boot camp, house arrest and probation which, if successfully
completed, would also mean no conviction.
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| Jean Wabafiyebazu left and Marc Wabafiyebazu right |
Much of the prosecution's case against Wabafiyebazu rested on a
spontaneous confession a rookie police officer said the youth had made from the
back seat of a cruiser as he was taken to a detention facility. Police had
denied his requests to call his mother and did not warn him that anything he
said could be used against him.
"This is one of the most serious cases I've had in this division in
a long time," Circuit Court Judge Teresa Pooler said in approving the
deal.
Dube stepped down last August as consul general, a post she had taken up
less than two months before the deadly encounter.
In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, she talked extensively of
the struggle to cope with the death of her older son while trying to support
his devastated younger brother, who found himself behind bars and facing the
prospect of a lengthy prison term.
The teen, whom she described as the son every mother would want, had
never been in trouble with the law.
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