An Orlando man convicted of kidnapping, raping and executing a South Miami High teen will learn Thursday if he is to be sent to Death Row.
Joel Lebron, 34, was convicted in October of the April 2002 killing of Ana Maria Angel, a case that shocked South Florida.
By a 9-3 vote, a jury recommended that Lebron be executed. Miami-Dade Circuit Judge William Thomas will read his sentence at 11 a.m.
It is rare for a judge to go against a jury’s recommendation in a death penalty case.
Lebron was one of five Orlando men who kidnapped Angel and her boyfriend, Nelson Portobanco, as the couple finished a romantic stroll on South Beach.
The men gang raped Angel, then slit Portobanco’s throat and left him on the side of Interstate 95 in Broward County. He survived and alerted police.
Alongside the interstate in Palm Beach County, Lebron and another man later marched Angel down an embankment, into the brush near a sound barrier wall. Lebron shot Angel in the back of the head as she begged for her life, her hands clasped in prayer.
The evidence against Lebron was overwhelming. Investigators traced a phone call made by one of the men to an Orlando address, where the couple’s stolen belongings were found.
Lebron confessed in chilling detail to investigators. His boots also had been splashed with Portobanco’s blood, and his DNA was matched to semen found inside the victim.
All five of the men have now been convicted. One of them, Victor Caraballo, originally sent to Death Row by Judge Thomas, is awaiting a re-sentencing after the Florida Supreme Court vacated the sentence.
Judge to sentence man in South Beach rape and murder
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Judge to sentence man in South Beach rape and murder
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Judge to sentence man in South Beach rape and murder
