Mario Miller was set up by a “pilot friend over a shipment of stolen cocaine, the Supreme Court heard yesterday as the defense opened its case in the trial of the two brothers accused of murdering the 28-year-old son of Cabinet Minister Leslie Miller.
Taking the stand in his own defense on Tuesday, murder accused Ricardo Miller told the jury of nine women and three men that he was paid to act as the supplier of the drugs for a deal involving 25 kilograms of cocaine that was set to take place the day Mario Miller’s badly stabbed body was found near a foodstore in Winton.
Ricardo said that after selling 27 kilos of cocaine for Mario Miller, he was asked to take part in a deal to sell 25 to 30 kilos of drugs and the arrangements were made for the trade off to take place on June 22, 2002. For every five kilos of cocaine that he sold, Ricardo told the court that he got to keep one for himself, and he had a private stash of 10 kilos of “white lady” cocaine.
The accused denied knowing that Mario’s drugs had been stolen, and testified that on the day of the deal, he sat in the driver’s seat of Mario’s luxury SUV, to give the impression that he was the owner, and Mario sat in the passenger’s seat.
He told the court a black suburban SUV with tinted windows pulled up to Mario’s car, and three men got out. Two of them sat in the back seat of Mario’s jeep and the other, who he described as a “rasta” with a Jamaican accent, walked around to the driver’s side of the SUV.
Ricardo said that after going over the price of the cocaine, at $13,500 a kilo, the men told Mario that the cocaine he was trying to sell had been stolen from their boss, who now wanted his drugs returned.
It was at this point, testified Ricardo, that the men sitting in the backseat pulled out a gun and knives and started threatening them.
He said one of the men sitting in the backseat asked him where he got the drugs.
“At the same time Mario shouted, ‘this a set up, my boy set me up. Don’t tell him where you got the kilos from’,” Ricardo told the court.
“I didn’t know what was going on.”
Ricardo testified that at one point, the men cut open a kilo of his cocaine, and said they knew he had nothing to do with the stolen drugs, because the serial numbers on his cache did not match the numbers on the stolen shipment.
During the struggle, Mario was stabbed in the chest and Ricardo was cut in the hand trying to protect himself, according to the testimony.
Ricardo said the men also put “balloons,” used to protect the drugs during shipment, over his and Mario’s heads to “smother” them, at different points during the struggle.
He said that blood was everywhere, and one point he thought he was going to die.
“I thought I was dead, my eyes were closing down,” Ricardo told the court. “I heard Mario say, ‘leave him, he don’t know anything’.”
Ricardo said that fearing for his life he told the men he knew where some drugs were and took them to Yamacraw beach, where he had stashed 20 kilograms of the cocaine set aside for the deal.
He said that when Mario was taken from his jeep to the Suburban, that was the last time he saw him alive.
Ricardo said that once the men saw the drugs at Yamacraw beach, they recognised that the 10 kilos belonging to Mario, which were wrapped in fibreglass for protection, were part of the shipment of stolen drugs.
According to his testimony, Ricardo was left at the beach after receiving a warning from the men.
“Did you ever tell [the police] you knew anyone who killed Mario?” Philip Hilton asked his client, Ricardo Miller.
“No, sir,” he answered.
“Did you tell anyone that you arranged for Mario to be ripped off?” asked Mr. Hilton.
“No, sir,” Ricardo replied.
Under cross examination by prosecutor Bernard Turner, the director of public prosecutions, Ricardo denied that the police statements read in court were a true reflection of what he said, claiming that the facts were reconstructed to create a story to fit their purposes.
He also said that he signed the statements without reading them first, and was not told that he was being arrested for the murder of Mario Miller until he arrived in Nassau, from Andros, where he and his brother were arrested.
Ricardo testified that he was told by police that he was being arrested on drugs and ammunition charges.
Earlier in the day, Ryan Miller, who is accused along with his older brother Ricardo of murdering Mario Miller, made a brief un-sworn statement from the prisoner’s dock.
He simply said that he had nothing to do with the murder of Mario, nor did he have any involvement in the June 2002 killing.
Directly addressing the jury, defense attorney Murrio Ducille said that while the prosecution maintains that its case is based on circumstantial evidence and centred on a drug deal and robbery, he was still waiting to hear proof of the claims.
Mr. Ducille also told the jury that his client, Ryan Miller, had not confessed to anything and questioned how the blood found in Ryan’s car got there.
The case continues Wednesday at 10: 30 a.m.
By: Erica Wells, The Bahama Journal
