A defense attorney for Pablo Ibar, the man sentenced to life in the June 1994 “Casey’s Nickelodeon” murders, is seeking to have his 2019 conviction vacated after a new witness has come forward, alleging two people who were never charged were the true killers.
The “newly discovered evidence,” a sworn affidavit from a witness who was previously not known to Ibar’s defense, could have potentially resulted in a different outcome at Ibar’s trial, attorney Daniel Tibbitt wrote in a court motion filed Sunday. The witness’s identity is not shared in the motion due to safety concerns.
The witness signed an affidavit swearing that two people he knows who are referenced in the court filing only as “A.N. aka El Loco” and “F.B. aka Loeva” are responsible for the murders of Casimir “Butch Casey” Sucharski, owner of Casey’s Nickleodeon nightclub, Sharon Anderson and Marie Rogers.
The three were shot to death during an invasion of Sucharski’s home in Miramar early on the morning of June 26, 1994. The murders were captured on grainy home surveillance video.
Ibar was charged with the murders and was tried multiple times, in 1997 ending in a hung jury and in 2000 resulting in a sentence to death row, which was changed to a life sentenced. He has always maintained that he is innocent, his attorney wrote.
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Prosecutors said a T-shirt found at Sucharski’s home had DNA that matched Ibar, with the probability it was a different Caucasian man at one in 11 million and one in 35 million among Hispanic men. And the man who was identified as Ibar on the surveillance video had worn a T-shirt covering his head during the murders and removed it afterward, walking directly in front of the camera. Ibar’s defense heavily contested the DNA evidence.
Seth Penalver, once Ibar’s co-defendant, was also charged, but his 1999 conviction and subsequent death sentence were also overturned and at a retrial in 2012 was found not guilty.
The recent development comes after the witness contacted a group that supports Ibar and maintains he was wrongly convicted, the Pablo Ibar Association, with his tip.
The witness swore in the affidavit that he had met “A.N.” when they worked for drug trafficking organizations in South Florida in the 1990s, according to the motion. In the summer of 1994, A.N. asked the witness to help with a home invasion in the summer of 1994, but he did not participate.
Months later while surveilling for a home invasion robbery, the witness heard A.N. bragging about “the home invasion and murders that he and F.B. committed” at a home of a person whose name is redacted in the motion but is clear that it is referencing Sucharski’s. The witness said both A.N. and F.B. admitted to the murders and that they were directed by someone identified only as “C.P. aka El Gordo” to enter the house “to get the drugs or money,” stemming from a drug-related debt allegedly owed.
The witness was arrested in a federal case two years later and swore in the affidavit that he told both federal and Miami-Dade County law enforcement of A.N. and F.B.’s crimes, including the murders, according to the motion.
Guilty again: Convicted killer could face death in 1994 Casey’s Nickelodeon murders
Tibbitt wrote that Ibar does not know and has never communicated with the witness or any of the people he mentioned until recently and would have pursued the lead if they had.
“Taking the affidavit as true, Pablo Ibar did not commit these murders and two other identified people did, A.N. and F.B,” Tibbitt wrote.
Tibbitt is asking that the judge grant an evidentiary hearing to determine whether the witness’s information, though acknowledged as hearsay, is credible and reasonably likely that it would result in a different outcome at a retrial where the jury heard the testimony.
A spokesperson for the Broward State Attorney’s Office told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that appellate attorneys will file a response in court.
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Information from the Sun Sentinel archives contributed to this report.