Maurice Spagnoletti moved from New Jersey to Puerto Rico in 2010 to try to restructure failing Doral Bank. In June of the following year, the 57-year-old was gunned down in his black Lexus as he drove home from work in San Juan.
(Bloomberg) — Maurice Spagnoletti moved from New Jersey to Puerto Rico in 2010 to try to restructure failing Doral Bank.
In June of the following year, the 57-year-old was gunned down in his black Lexus as he drove home from work in San Juan.
The drive-by murder of a prominent banker on a busy highway during rush hour shocked the island and has been a matter of intense speculation ever since.
Now, nearly 12 years later, a jury in the US territory on Tuesday began deliberating whether Spagnoletti was murdered by a violent drug gang that feared the banker’s cost-cutting recommendations at Doral threatened one of its income streams.
“They didn’t like that Maurice Spagnoletti was about to eliminate their money-making machine,” federal prosecutor Kelly Zenon Matos told jurors during closing arguments.
“Murder was their answer.”
Read More: The Strange Story of a Murdered Banker in Puerto Rico
Spagnoletti, who grew up in Jersey City, worked his way up at small and mid-sized banks before rising to senior positions at Summit and Fifth Third banks.
At the time he was recruited by Doral as an executive vice president, it was among the largest in Puerto Rico and counted Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and D.E. Shaw among its investors.
But by the time Spagnoletti arrived in San Juan, Doral was saddled with non-performing loans amid a sliding Puerto Rican economy.
He recommended Doral cancel a contract with SJ Tropical, a janitorial and maintenance company that was being paid $24,000 a week.
According to prosecutors, SJ Tropical was under the control of Rolando Rivera Solis, who worked as the spiritual leader, or “padrino,” of a drug-trafficking gang.
Facing a massive hit to his income because of the canceled contract, the government argued, Rivera Solis and his associates decided to kill the banker.
While Rivera Solis wasn’t the only leader of the criminal organization, his role as a priest in the religion of Yoruba, or Santeria, made him the gang’s “godfather” and guiding force, Zenon Matos said.
“I submit to you he was twisted,” she said.
“He was giving them religious advice to further their trafficking activities – not to better their lives.”
The defense argues that the government’s case relies on hearsay and cooperating witnesses, some of whom would be willing to lie under oath to have their sentences reduced.
Rivera Solis’s lawyer, Leo Aldridge, accused prosecutors of trying to snow jurors with an avalanche of testimony that ultimately failed to provide any evidence that linked his client to the crime.
And he said prosecutors were so desperate to resolve the high-profile case that they had zeroed in on a vulnerable group of people.
“Going after the maintenance people is an easy target,” he said.
The government “went for the low-hanging fruit, the people who clean the toilets and wipe the floors once everybody has left.”
In 2013, Spagnoletti’s family sued executives of Doral Bank, claiming Spagnoletti was murdered after he allegedly uncovered fraud at the institution.
In 2014 they withdrew the suit so as not to interfere with criminal proceedings, according to local news reports at the time.
Doral Bank fell into FDIC receivership in 2015, one of the biggest bank failures in between the subprime meltdown and the current crisis.
Its 26 branches — including three in New York City and five in Florida — were divided up between four other banks.
Bleeding the Bank
During the criminal trial that began March 27, prosecutors relied on a parade of witnesses and informants to paint a picture of a violent gang that was bleeding Doral Bank through an inflated contract.
Alleged gang members Luis Carmona Bernacet and Yadiel Serrano Canales are on trial with Rivera Solis for murder.
Alex Burgos Amaro, another alleged gang member, goes on trial later this year.
Among the prosecution’s key witnesses was Milagros Perez, Rivera Solis’s mistress, who was also the registered owner of SJ Tropical.
She testified that Burgos Amaro had confessed to her that he participated in the crime and that Serrano Canales had been the trigger man.
Aldridge, the defense attorney, called her the “quintessential scorned woman” with an “ax to grind” — who had been dumped by Rivera Solis after she got pregnant.
The banker’s widow, Marisa Spagnoletti, testified that she was followed on at least three occasions by Serrano Canales in the days before her husband’s murder.
Under cross-examination, she said she’d never alerted the authorities at the time.
Last week, she sat in the front row wearing a gray blazer. She hugged a prosecutor as she left the courthouse fighting back tears and declining to talk to reporters.
Read More: US Says Puerto Rican Gangsters Killed Doral Banker in 2011
The only witness for the defense was Annelise Figueroa, who was the vice president of facilities for Doral.
Figueroa testified that she regularly visited Rivera Solis for religious consultations. She said Rivera Solis never spoke ill of Spagnoletti and that SJ Tropical performed valuable maintenance services to the bank.
Prosecutors pointed out that the company that ultimately replaced SJ Tropical charged 40% less.
Along with the murder charges, the four defendants, as well as two other men, face separate drugs and weapons charges.
Carmona Bernacet is also facing two separate murder charges.
Rivera Solis’s criminal organization grew powerful on a mix of drug trafficking, murder and religious zealotry, US attorney Zenon Matos said.
They ran a “machine for the production of violence against anyone who would get in their way,” she said.
In defense closings, Aldridge called the government’s case “speculation, desperation and demonization” and said Spagnoletti’s real killers were still unknown.
“At it’s heart it’s a murder mystery,” the lawyer said.
“And sadly, it’s still a murder mystery.”
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