MIAMI (WSVN) - Closing arguments have ended and jury deliberations are expected to begin in the trial of a former supermarket chain owner accused of orchestrating the murder of his ex-wife’s lover.
Prosecutors rested their case in the trial of Manuel Marin, the former owner of several Presidente supermarkets, Wednesday afternoon.
Defense attorneys then delivered their closing arguments to the jury.
“In criminal law, it’s what you do that can get you in trouble. It is what you do that could get you convicted, not what somebody else did,” said a defense attorney.
Marin is accused of hiring hitmen to kill 43-year-old Camilo Salazar back in June 2011.
When his body was found in the Everglades, police said, officers discovered that his throat was slit and his head was beaten.
Dr. Emma Lew, the Miami-Dade chief medical examiner at the time of the incident, testified for the state earlier in the day.
“I went to the scene of death, yes,” she said.
Lew described what she saw when she showed up that day.
“His hands were bound behind his back with a belt, and both hands had burns,” she said.
At one point, a prosecutor showed a picture to her.
“Doctor, is this a close-up of the deceased?” asked the prosecutor.
“Yes, it is. I found two lacerations on the left side of the top of the head, and there was another laceration above the left eyebrow,” said Lew. “There were two cuts across the front of the neck, one that was higher and shorter and less deep. The second one was lower on the neck and was very deep, went from one side of the neck to the other and was deep enough to cut through the trachea, which is the windpipe.”
Lew was also cross-examined by the defense, who later made a motion for acquittal, but the presiding judge denied it.
Defense attorneys did not call a witness.
Marin did not take the stand.
Jurors are expected to begin deliberations Wednesday evening.
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