PORT ST. LUCIE — Thousands of festival-goers might not be able to enjoy the next annual Oktoberfest, St. Patrick’s Day Festival, and Art and All That Jazz because of city budget cuts.

The city’s Community Redevelopment Area staff is recommending the City Council cut the $10,000 sponsorship it gives to each festival. Assistant City Manager Greg Oravec, who also serves as the agency’s director, sent letters earlier this month giving the bad news to the organizers.

He said last week he doesn’t know how long the cuts will last, and the festivals will have to raise more money privately.
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Rick DiCresce

No one said a word.

At the time, all Rick DiCresce could see were the photos prosecutors had showed them that day of the Escobedo family — the father, mother and 3- and 4-year-old sons lying dead together on the side of the road.

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Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

WEST PALM BEACH — In the end, jurors decided, the murders of 4-year-old Luis Julian Escobedo and 3-year-old Luis Damian Escobedo were too much to forgive.

They unanimously condemned Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya to pay for the boys’ lives with their own today, marking
the first time in decades that a federal jury in Florida has handed down a death sentence.

The children, shot to death in October 2006 along with their parents on Florida’s Turnpike, became the focal point of outrage as among the only purely innocent faces during a months-long trial and sentencing hearing that pushed jurors into the world of drugs, guns and violence.

After four days of deliberating, the jury decided that Sanchez and Troya should receive life sentences for the killings of the boys’ parents, Jose Luis Escobedo, 28, and Yessica Escobedo, 25.

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Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

A federal jury will continue deliberations tomorrow in deciding whether Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya will spend the rest of their lives in prison or be put to death for the 2006 drug-related murders of Jose Luis Escobedo and his family on Florida’s Turnpike.

The 12-member panel began deliberations in the case early this afternoon, ending a nearly two-week hearing where attorneys for the men tried to get them to opt for life sentences for Escobedo, his wife, Yessica, and their 3- and 4-year-old sons Luis Damian and Luis Julian. Prosecutors say Escobedo was a drug supplier to Sanchez and Troya’s boss, Danny Varela, and the pair killed the man and his family to steal the cocaine he was carrying and relieve Varela from a debt.

If jurors in the case cannot come to a unanimous decision on life or death in the case, then sentencing will fall to U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley, who will by law be authorized to impose a sentence no harsher than life in prison.

A federal jury Wednesday will likely hear their last words from attorneys before deciding whether Ricardo Sanchez Jr. and Daniel Troya will spend their lives in prison or face the death penalty for the 2006 murders of a family of four.

Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

Federal prosecutors today presented their last evidence against Sanchez and Troya, both 25, who jurors this month found guilty of the murders of Jose Luis Escobedo, his wife, Yessica, and sons Luis Julian and Luis Damian. Defense attorneys since last week have been trying to convince jurors to spare the men’s lives.

Donnie Murrell, Sanchez’s attorney, has built his case on the facts that Sanchez has a low IQ, grew up in a crime-infested environment, watched his father beat his mother and had a mentally disabled older brother who suffered from violent seizures and is in a prison mental hospital after trying to burn down the family home.

Troya’s attorney James Eisenberg has pointed to several events - including the shooting death of Troya’s friend John Pierre Kamel when Troya was 13, the suicide of a family friend and bad influence from his uncle Isidro - as factors that changed Troya, bringing him to a life of crime.
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Attorneys for Ricardo Sanchez Jr. this morning completed presenting evidence in their bid to have a federal jury give him life in prison instead of the death penalty for the murders of a family of four along Florida’s Turnpike.

Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

The testimony ended with forensic psychologist Tom Reidy, who said that Sanchez’s upbringing made him more likely than the average child to turn to a life of crime.

A jury earlier this month convicted Sanchez and another man, Daniel Troya, of carrying out the murders of Jose Luis Escobedo, his wife, Yessica, and their 4- and 3-year-old sons Luis Julian and Luis Damian.

Sanchez’s mother left the courtroom crying as Reidy said though Sanchez wasn’t physically abused as a child he may have suffered from emotional neglect, which along with a low IQ and upbringing in a violent environment all contributed to his eventual participation in a drug ring headed by Danny Varela.

Escobedo was a supplier for the group, according to prosecutors, and was killed for the theft of drugs and because Varela owed him money.

On cross-examination, Department of Justice trial attorney Richard Burns pressed Reidy on whether or not Sanchez could have been resilient enough to overcome his circumstances, also pointing out the doctor’s prior testimony about a human being’s free will and ability to make choices.

“And he chose to kill?” Burns asked.

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A federal jury Thursday afternoon convicted two men in the 2006 murders of a family of four along Florida’s Turnpike.

Family reacts Video report

More on the case Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

The verdicts mean either life in prison or death for Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya, both 25.

The 12-member jury after four days of deliberations also convicted Danny Varela, 28, and Liana Lee Lopez, 20, on charges related to the drug ring the four ran from a luxury Briar Bay home in 2006.

Jose Luis Escobedo worked as a drug connection for the group. He, his wife Yessica and their 3 and 4-year-old sons Luis Damian and Luis Julian were killed after he and Varela, the group’s leader, argued over missing money.

Escobedo’s sister Rita Escobedo Flores, his mother Rosario Escobedo, and Yessica’s mother Sara Guerrero all expressed joy over the verdict, crying as they hugged investigators in the case after U.S. District Judge Daniel T. K. Hurley dismissed court for the day.

The three women, along with Guerrero’s sister Monica Moreno, sat through each day of more than five weeks of testimony.

“We needed that closure,” Flores said. “We needed answers to those unanswered questions, and even though there are still some unanswered questions God answered most of them for us.”
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Jurors ended a third day of deliberations Wednesday without reaching a verdict in the federal death penalty trial surrounding the killings of a family of four along Florida’s Turnpike.

Ricardo Sanchez and Daniel Troya, both 25, could face the death penalty if convicted in the shooting deaths of Jose Luis Escobedo and his family. Jurors are also considering drug conspiracy and gun charges against both men, the leader of their alleged ring Danny Varela, and Varela’s sometime girlfriend Liana Lee Lopez.

The 12-member jury panel began deliberating Monday, capping off more than five weeks of testimony in the case.

A federal jury will begin a third day of deliberations Wednesday in the trial surrounding the 2006 killings of a family of four on Florida’s Turnpike.

Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

Jurors Tuesday seemed to focus their deliberations on gun charges against Danny Varela and Liana Lee Lopez, who are accused of running a drug ring with two men, Daniel Troya and Ricardo Sanchez.

Troya and Sanchez could face the death penalty if the jury convicts them of charges related to the deaths of Jose Luis Escobedo, his wife Yessica, and sons Luis Julian and Luis Damian.

Prosecutors say Escobedo worked as a supplier for the drug crew Varela headed and was killed for the drugs he was carrying as well as to cancel a debt Varela owed to him. Varela was not charged in the deaths, but faces life in prison if convicted on the related drug charges. Deliberations began Monday, capping off more than five weeks of testimony in the case.

The jurors asked several questions Tuesday of U.S. District Judge Daniel T.K. Hurley through handwritten notes, the first of which contained requests for two guns seized from the group’s alleged West Palm Beach drug den two weeks after the killings.
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Defense attorney Michael Cohen stood in front of a federal jury Thursday morning, holding several bullets in his hands.

“You’re looking at the government’s case right here,” he said, pushing toward them the evidence prosecutors say ties Cohen’s client, Ricardo Sanchez, to the brutal 2006 killings of a family of four along Florida’s Turnpike.

Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

Cohen and other attorneys on Thursday finished giving jurors the final words they will hear from them before deciding the fates of Sanchez, Daniel Troya, Danny Varela and Liana Lopez.

Sanchez and Troya, accused of killing Jose Luis Escobedo and his family, could be put to death if convicted on related charges. Both allegedly worked for Varela, whom Assistant U.S. Attorney John Kastrenakes described as a drug kingpin who used Escobedo as a connection to cocaine sources in Mexico.

Varela is not charged in the deaths, but he and sometime girlfriend Lopez are on trial with the two others on related drug and weapons charges.
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