April 14, 2009 — At the last minute, the three men scheduled to go on trial for the July 2008 murder of 30-year-old Dwayne Lynch accepted plea deals that could put them in jail for at least 20 years.
Carlos Acosta, Kaleb Josue and Edgar Ortiz were originally charged with first-degree murder after their arrest last July. Lynch was shot in Hospital Ground after he had a car accident while trying to evade pursuers.
A suggestion made during a subsequent police press conference that Lynch's murder was a contract killing has neither been confirmed nor denied by police. However, officials have said the trio had documents on them at the time indicating they had recently traveled from Puerto Rico. (See "Handful of Arrests Made in High-Profile Cases.")
The case was set to go to trial Tuesday, with jury selection beginning around 9 a.m. By the time the prospective jurors filed out of V.I. Superior Court about four hours later, an announcement was made that Acosta, Josue and Ortiz had agreed to plead guilty to one count each of second-degree murder and possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime of second-degree murder.
The second-degree murder charge carries a mandatory minimum of five years in jail, while the weapons charge would add another 15, according to government attorney Jesse Bethel.
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