Diplomat’s son avoids prison in plea deal
Could have faced 40 years in double killing
• The teenage son of a Canadian diplomat pleaded no contest 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, f oll owed by 1 0 months of modified house arrest and a maximum of eight years probation.
If he completes the sent ence without i ncident, the teen will have no criminal conviction registered against him.
“Marc has his f uture,” his mother Roxanne Dubé, Canada’s f ormer consul 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 all ege 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 ap- proved by the state attorney, however, the prosecution made a rare concession to reduce the two main charges he faced to thirddegree murder. Wabafiyebazu also pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of aggravated battery and attempted armed robbery.
“Essentially, he is paying the price for Jean,” Dubé said. “He is also pleading to the murder of his own brother.”
Wabafiyebazu’s two coaccused, 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 t o minor drug c harges and were sentenced to boot camp, house arrest and probation, which, if successfully completed, would also mean no conviction.
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.
Dubé stepped down last August as consul general, a post she had taken up less than two months before the deadly encounter.
The teen, whom she described as the son every mother would want, had never been in trouble with the law.
WHEN (FREE WI-FI) WORKS, IT’S TREMENDOUS. ONLY SOMETIMES IT WON’T CONNECT. OR IT’LL CONNECT AND THEN DROP OUT. OR IT’LL CONNECT HALF A SECOND BEFORE WE PLUNGE BACK INTO THE TUNNEL, AND THEN CARTOON STEAM ESCAPES MY EARS ... — CHRIS SELLEY ESSENTIALLY, HE IS PAYING THE PRICE FOR (HIS BROTHER) JEAN.