A retrial is underway in Broward County for a Fort Lauderdale man accused of killing a witness in a Miami drug case in 2013.
Dan Gerard Holmes, 44, was tried last fall in the shooting death of Johnny Lee Ross, 45, who was found shot to death inside his girlfriend’s 2006 Ford Expedition on Northwest 28th Terrace, just west of Fort Lauderdale on Dec. 1, 2013.
The first trial started in October but was disrupted when Holmes was accused of intimidating a prosecution witness. Although Holmes has yet to be formally charged with witness tampering, proseuctors indicated to Broward Circuit Judge Martin Bidwill that they will seek to raise the issue in front of the new jury.
The witness ended up testifying in November, as did Holmes, but the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict.
According to prosecutor Nicole Chiappone, Holmes was paid to kill Ross to keep him from testifying against an alleged drug dealer. “This is a classic case of a wintess being killed so he could not testify against someone in a criminal case,” she said. Witnesses, including one who knew Holmes before the shooting, said they saw Holmes on his way to and from the scene, complicating what would have been his getaway, Chiappone said Monday.
Defense lawyer Christopher Clark told the jury they would doubt the eyewitness testimony by the end of the trial. One of the witnesses gave a description of the shooter that did not match the clothing Holmes was wearing that day, Clark said.
And Holmes has always maintained that he was a witness to the shooting, not the perpetrator. According to Clark, Holmes said the shooter was in another vehicle, not in the Expedition with Ross as alleged by prosecutors.
At the last trial, at least one expert said the angle of the shooting meant the shooter would have had to be standing up outside the Expedition, not seated in another car as Holmes described.
This time around, the trial is expected to last more than a week.
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