Accomplice to slaying pleads guilty, will testify against trio
An accomplice in the Ocoee witness-killing case pleaded guilty Wednesday and agreed to testify against his co-defendants in their upcoming trial.
Nesly Ciceron, 29, was charged with principal to murder in the Sept. 10 execution-style slaying of Alex Zaldivar. The plea agreement requires Ciceronto testify truthfully against slaying suspects Bessman Okafor, Emmaneul Wallace and Donnell Godfrey.
If he abides by the terms of the plea deal, he could face a maximum of 15 years in prison, a serious departure from the original penalty of life in prison. Ciceron, a 29-year-old college student, has no prior criminal history.
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Victim’s father angrily denounces county’s corrections program.
During the hearing, Ciceron admitted acting as a lookout the night of the homicide and gave details about the incident. Afterward he offered an apology to Rafael Zaldivar, father of the slain 19-year-old.
“I would like to apologize to you and your family,” Ciceron told Zaldivar, who was seated in the front row of the gallery. “I wanted to testify truthfully to bring you and your family closure.”
Listening to the details of his son’s death was brutal, Zaldivar said. “It just tore me up. This is just the beginning.”
Last week a Sentinel investigation foundthat Okafor, whowas out of jail on home confinement and on
an ankle monitor, had 109 alerts that hewas off supervision during the 10 weeks he was out on bond. Several of those alerts were overnight.
Rafael Zaldivar has closely followed his son’s case and said he is outraged that the Orange County Jail’s community corrections program failed to adequately monitor Okafor, and he called for the firing of Orange County Jail Chief Michael Tidwell.
“My son is dead because you didn’t do your job,” said an increasingly emotional Zaldivar as he held up his son’s deathcertificate outside the Orange County Courthouse after Ciceron’s guilty plea. “If you’re doing your job, explain to me why I got this [death certificate] in the mail. Explain it to my family; explain it to the community!”
After the Sentinel’s inquiries, Tidwell this month ordered an internal investigation into the home-confinement unit employees who were supposed to supervise Okafor.
Seven employees have since been reassigned.
Orange County Mayor Teresa Jacobs has ordered a parallel investigation by the county’s professional-standards unit.
During the hearing, Ciceron testified briefly before Orange Circuit Judge John Marshall Kest.
He said he was awakened by Okafor the night of the homicide and was asked to act as a lookout.
In earlier interviews with police, Ciceron said he thought Okafor was going to steal something and sell it to make money to pay his lawyer for an earlier May homeinvasion case. It was not until the next day, Ciceron said in police statements, that he learned someone had been killed.
Ciceron testified Wednesday that Okafor told him the trio of armed men broke into the house on Bernadino Drive where the May homeinvasion case took place and shot three people in the head.
Police say Alex Zaldivar and Brienna Campos were targeted because they planned to testify against Okafor the following day in the May home-invasion case. The third shooting victim, Remington Campos, was not a witness in the May case.
Okafor, Wallace and Godfrey are charged with firstdegree murder and could face the death penalty if convicted.