Man guilty of lesser charges in charter-boat slayings

MIAMI - A federal jury convicted a 20-year-old man on firearms charges yesterday in the hijacking and shooting deaths of four people last year aboard the "Joe Cool" charter boat. A mistrial was declared on 12 other charges that included kidnapping and first-degree murder.

The second man tried in the slayings, Guillermo Zarabozo, could face life in prison after jurors found him guilty of four counts of causing death through the use of a firearm. Jurors sent a note to U.S. District Judge Paul Huck late yesterday saying that they were deadlocked on the remaining counts after three days of deliberations.

Prosecutors said that Zarabozo and Kirby Archer, 36, booked the 47-foot "Joe Cool" for a phony trip to Bimini, Bahamas, but intended all along to hijack the charter vessel to Cuba. The boat's captain, his wife and two crew members were shot to death and their bodies dumped overboard.

Lawyers for Zarabozo, a security guard, argued at trial that Archer hatched the plot alone, and also claimed that he had killed all four. Archer has pleaded guilty to the killings and faces life in prison at sentencing in October. Prosecutors said that he wanted to hide in Cuba from Arkansas authorities investigating allegations that he had sexually molested children and stolen $92,000 from a Wal-Mart he managed.

Slain were the captain, Jake Branam, 27; his wife, Kelley Branam, 30; and crew members Scott Gamble, 35, and Samuel Kairy, 27.

The trial was a challenge for prosecutors because they had no bodies, no murder weapons and no witnesses to the crime.

They focused on what they said were efforts by Zarabozo to cut ties with friends and family, his purchase under a fake name of a cell phone used to call charter boats and physical evidence such as blood and shell casings that matched a 9mm Glock that Zarabozo owned. *