5 indicted in slaying of Miami teenager

By Diana Marrero, Miami Bureau, Posted May 9 2002

Sun-Sentinel Link

Miami · A 16-year-old high school dropout will be tried as an adult for the murder of a young Miami woman abducted with her boyfriend during a midnight stroll on South Beach.

The teen, Jesus Torres Roman, and four other Orlando-area men were all indicted Wednesday by a Miami-Dade grand jury on the same charges: first-degree murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, armed robbery and gang rape. Prosecutors have indicated they will seek the death penalty for all of the men, except for Torres Roman, who by law is too young to be executed by the state.

"This is exactly the type of case that the Florida Legislature created the death penalty for," said Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle.

That brings little relief to the families of Ana Angel and Nelson Portobanco, 18-year-old high school sweethearts whose dreams about life after graduation were shattered in the torturous hours of their abduction two weeks ago.

"Relief should come to the families trying to raise their own children safely," said Angel's mother, Margarita Osorio. "They should pay for what they did and pay hard. Whatever happens to them, it will never bring my daughter or my sanity back. I'm dead in life. Everything for me has finished."

Police say the suspects -- Victor Manuel Caraballo, 34; his brother, Hector Manuel Caraballo, 30; Cesar Antonio Mena, 22; Joel G. Lebron, 23; and Torres Roman -- forced the couple into their rented four-door pickup truck, left Portobanco for dead after slashing his throat, and sexually assaulted Angel before killing her. They think Lebron fired the fatal shot.

The four adult suspects were on suicide watch in the Miami-Dade County jail, but have since been moved to the general population. Torres Roman, who is Lebron's nephew, was to be transferred Wednesday from the Juvenile Detention Center, where he's been since his arrest, to the adult jail. He will be held with other juveniles who are awaiting trial as adults, said jail spokeswoman Janelle Hall.

Under Florida law, it doesn't matter who fired the single bullet into Angel's head before her body was dumped off Interstate 95 in Boca Raton. Everyone who participated in the crimes leading up to her killing can be charged with first-degree murder. The same goes for the rest of the charges, according to Miami-based attorney Neal Sonnett, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. For most crimes, anyone who is a participant or even later helps a criminal can be held liable as if he or she physically committed the crime, Sonnett said.

"I surmise the state's theory will be in the nature of a conspiracy, where everybody is in agreement to commit the act and aids and abets the acts of the others and can be held as co-conspirators," he said.

Steven Bustamante, attorney for Joel Lebron, cautioned against jumping to conclusions before the evidence is presented in court.

"He's in serious trouble," Bustamante said of Lebron. "They're all in serious trouble, but this is only an indictment. We don't really know what happened yet. We're at the beginning of a long road, and the press and everyone else needs to give them the presumption of innocence until proven guilty."

At least one of the suspects has publicly proclaimed his innocence and claims only to have been unable to help the couple as the conduct of the other men culminated with Angel's murder.

Mena, who during a hearing last week told a judge he had done nothing wrong, continues to profess his innocence though, according to police, he was the one who drove, whose weapon was used and who planned the weekend "mission" to South Florida.

Beverly Suarez, a hotel housekeeper who lived with Mena for the past four months in Kissimmee, said Wednesday she held out hope that what Mena is telling her in daily collect calls from jail is true.

"He swears to me be he didn't touch the people," Suarez said. "He didn't know how to help those people. Everything happened so fast. He just got caught up and didn't know what to do. He says he feels guilty because he feels he acted like a coward in not defending the people, but he panicked."

Suarez, who said she trusted Mena to care for her two children, said she believed his story. "The person that I know I can't see doing these things," she said.

Suarez said she has talked to Mena's mother in Miami, and she's devastated, too. Mena is her only child. "The woman is destroyed. The whole family is destroyed. They can't believe he would be involved in such a thing ... But then again she feels for [Osorio]."

As prosecutors prepare their case against Mena and the other suspects, investigators are still interviewing people and analyzing the evidence they've collected, closely examining evidence from the truck, said John Burke, supervisor at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement in Orlando.

"When we finish with the physical evidence, we'll have a better idea who else might be involved," Burke said when asked about future arrests.

That the five men in custody are likely to face stiff punishment did not bring satisfaction to the Portobanco family, who like Osorio said nothing will diminish their suffering.

"Our pain can not be compared to what may happen to those individuals," said Nelson Portobanco's father and namesake.

Portobanco, though, said his son is doing better and the wounds, at least those on his body, are slowly healing: "We're taking things poco a poco [little by little]."

Maya Bell and Doris Bloodsworth of the Orlando Sentinel contributed to this report.

Diana Marrero can be reached at dmarrero@sun-sentinel.com or 305-810-5005.

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