A Florida pastor accused of helping plot the 2021 assassination of Haiti’s president so he could seize power heads to trial in Miami after pleading not guilty.
Christian Emmanuel Sanon, a 67-year-old Haitian American pastor, is due to stand trial Monday in U.S. District Court in Miami on charges that include conspiracy to kill or kidnap Haitian President Jovenel Moise. He has pleaded not guilty and could face life in prison if convicted.
Reuters reported that U.S. prosecutors say Sanon helped recruit participants in the plot and hoped to become Haiti’s president after Moise was removed. His lawyers acknowledge he had presidential ambitions but deny he knew of any plan to kill the president.
Moise was shot dead in his bedroom on July 7, 2021, after armed men stormed his home near Port-au-Prince. His widow, Martine Moise, survived the attack and is expected to testify. The killing left Haiti without an elected president and deepened a security crisis as armed gangs expanded their control.
More than five years later, the case has become a major federal prosecution built in South Florida, the place prosecutors say the conspiracy was largely organized and financed.
U.S. authorities describe a brazen scheme driven by political and financial motives. Investigators have linked the conspiracy to a bid to install a new government and secure lucrative state contracts. The New York Post reported that Haitian authorities arrested Sanon days after the assassination. A search of his home turned up boxes of ammunition, 19 passports, and other items.
Sanon was born in southern Haiti, studied medicine in the Dominican Republic, and later moved to Florida. He lived intermittently in South Florida starting in the 2000s and appeared in online videos promoting himself as a potential leader. He was transferred to U.S. custody in early 2023. Prosecutors first charged him in connection with the alleged smuggling of bulletproof vests to Haiti, then expanded the case.
In August, U.S. authorities charged 30 more suspects and brought 18 defendants from Haitian custody to the United States. Five people have already received life sentences. Dozens have been accused in all, including former Colombian soldiers.
Several convicted defendants have pointed to Sanon as one of the ringleaders. His lawyers are expected to argue that co-conspirators sidelined him.
Related proceedings in Miami have already put the alleged South Florida hub on display. Breitbart reported that prosecutors opened a federal trial against four men, Arcangel Pretel Ortiz, Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla, and James Solages, charged with conspiring in South Florida to kidnap or kill Moise.
Prosecutors told jurors the men were driven by greed, arrogance, and power. They say the group planned to install Sanon, then later Wendelle Coq Thélot, as president and steer infrastructure, security, and equipment contracts to CTU companies. Moise was killed by about two dozen mostly Colombian mercenaries. Five others have pleaded guilty in the U.S. and face life sentences.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Sean McLaughlin laid out the government’s view of the plotters’ mindset:
"So arrogant and confident in themselves, the evidence will show, and thinking so little of the Republic of Haiti and its people, they actually thought they could pull it off."
Defense attorneys countered that their clients were manipulated amid a flawed Haitian investigation and believed they were aiding a lawful arrest. Ortiz attorney Orlando do Campo told the court:
"Once you get off on the wrong foot, everything that comes after is hard to trust."
Earlier reporting filled in how Sanon first drew scrutiny. Fox News reported that Haitian authorities identified him as a key figure protected by Moise’s killers and linked him to Colombian suspects and a security firm. Police said they found a DEA hat, boxes of bullets, gun parts, Dominican plates, cars, and correspondence at his Haiti house.
According to that reporting, CTU Security bought plane tickets for Colombian ex-soldiers who flew in to protect Sanon before orders shifted toward the president. Associates claimed Sanon was misled into believing he would replace Moise after an arrest rather than a killing, and that the effort carried supposed U.S. backing, a claim that remains contested and unproven in the charging narrative.
A Florida associate of Sanon put it this way:
"This was supposed to be a mission to save Haiti from hell, with support from the U.S. government."
Rev. Larry Caldwell offered a character defense:
"I know the character of the man... If there was one man who would be willing to stand in the breach to help his country, it would be Christian."
Prosecutors reject the clean-hands version. They say the plot was a violent shortcut to power, organized far from Port-au-Prince and paid for in South Florida, with mercenaries on the ground and a pastor waiting in the wings.
The assassination did not deliver a stable transition. Haiti has operated without an elected president since Moise’s death. Armed gangs have expanded their reach. Rampant violence and chronic corruption have cast doubt on the country’s first presidential election in a decade, planned for December.
Martine Moise’s expected testimony will put a survivor’s account before a Miami jury. The government will try to tie recruitment, financing, and ambition into a single conspiracy. Sanon’s team will try to separate presidential daydreams from a murder plot and argue he was cut out by others.
What is not in dispute is the body count of accountability so far: life sentences already handed down, dozens charged, Colombian ex-soldiers in the mix, and a Florida courtroom now weighing whether a pastor who wanted the palace helped clear the path with guns.
Law-and-order cases like this one exist for a reason. When ambitious men treat a sovereign country like a hostile takeover target, the answer is evidence, trials, and verdicts, not excuses and chaos.
