Former co-defendant ordered to leave Casey’s Nickelodeon murder trial
Seth Penalver, who once spent years on death row for a Miramar triple murder, returned to the Broward courthouse Tuesday as a free man, eager to watch the retrial of his former co-defendant, Pablo Ibar.
He was not welcome. Penalver, 45, was recognized as soon as he walked into Broward Circuit Judge Dennis Bailey’s courtroom, and the judge promptly ordered him to leave — Penalver is listed as a potential witness by both prosecutors and defense lawyers in the case.
Witnesses are not permitted to watch proceedings before they testify, and while Penalver said he does not expect to be called to the stand, he remains bound by the rule.
But that didn’t stop him from taking a swipe at the prosecutor who sent him to prison 19 years ago for the murders of Casimir “Butch Casey” Sucharski,
Sharon Anderson Marie Rogers.
“They don’t want the jury to see me,” said Penalver, who insists he was framed for the three murders by detectives and prosecutors more desperate to close the case than to find the true perpetrators. “They don’t want the jury to know the truth.”
Family members of Sucharski and Rogers declined to comment. The prosecutor, Chuck Morton, also declined to comment.
A short time later, Penalver was in the hallway outside the courtroom talking amicably with Ibar’s father, Cándido.
Prosecutors believe Penalver and Ibar burst into Sucharski’s Miramar home on June 26, 1994, and committed the murders during a violent robbery that was caught on a surveillance camera.
Both Penalver and Ibar were tried, convicted and sentenced to death — Penalver in 1999 and Ibar in 2000. But both men were granted retrials: Penalver because he convinced the Florida Supreme Court that crucial evidence had been withheld from the defense lawyer, and Ibar because his original lawyer did not adequately challenge the state’s case.
Penalver was found not guilty after his 2012 retrial. Ibar’s retrial started Monday.
Ibar’s father was born in Spain and was a wellknown jai alai player. Ibar’s conviction and death sentence became a prominent cause in Spain, with death penalty opponents raising enough money to fund his continuing defense.
The first two days of the retrial, which started Monday, were attended by a delegation of nine members of Spain’s senate.
“We are not here to say he is innocent,” said Senator Rosa Vindel, of Madrid. “We are here as opponents of the death penalty. We don’t want his life to be at risk. We want a fair trial.”
If convicted, Ibar return to death row.
Jurors haven’t seen the grainy surveillance footage that depicts the murders, but they have seen numerous autopsy photos showing how all three victims were shot multiple times.
Defense lawyers argue that the case was tainted by misconduct almost from the start — a witness who claimed responsibility for torching Sucharski’s stolen car in Palm Beach County was murdered a day after he came forward, and another witness was directed by police to Crimestoppers in an arrangement defense lawyers say smacks of payment for testimony.
But prosecutors say Ibar made two crucial mistakes the day of the murders.
He removed the T-shirt covering his face without realizing he was being recorded, and he left the Tshirt at the scene.
DNA on the shirt was later traced to Ibar and Anderson. and faces a