MIAMI – A 69-year-old Miami businessman was sentenced to life in prison on Monday in Miami-Dade County court for the kidnapping and murder of a man who he wanted to punish for having an affair with his wife.
Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Miguel M. De La O sentenced Manuel Marin after his conviction for the 2011 kidnapping and murder of Camilo Salazar, a married father of two who was 43.
“Your actions were senseless and cruel,” De La O told Marin.
De La O’s sentence for Marin: 30 years in state prison for manslaughter with a weapon, 15 years in prison for conspiracy to commit kidnapping or aggravated battery, and life in prison for kidnapping.
“No punishment I impose can make this right,” De La O told Salazar’s loved ones.
Salazar died weeks before his 10-year-old daughter was to celebrate her 11th birthday. She attended the sentencing hearing after recently graduating from college at 22 years old. He vanished on June 1, 2011, after dropping off his newborn daughter at about 10:10 a.m., at his wife’s office at 2801 SW 31st Ave.
“It has been 12 years and we know that every time my daughter celebrates a birthday because she marks time with her birth, and he was taken from us creating so much pain,” Salazar’s widow Daisy Holcombe said during the hearing.
Salazar didn’t get to leave in his parked Chevrolet TrailBlazer when Roberto “Bam Bam” Isaac, Alexis Vila Perdomo, and Ariel Gandulla abducted him, and he turned up dead on June 2, 2011, near the Everglades, according to police.
“He suffered both physical and psychological torture,” De La O said before announcing his sentence.
Jurors learned the medical examiner determined Salazar had been tied up and beaten with an object strong enough to fracture his jaw and skull. His throat had been slit, and parts of his body burned, including his genitals.
“This court can’t take away burning fire nightmares. It can’t remove images of plastic suffocating,” Holcombe said while asking the judge for the maximum penalty.
Prosecutors had evidence to show that Isaac, Vila Perdomo, and Gandulla were involved in a murder-for-hire plot devised by Marin, who was formerly associated with Presidente Supermarkets and fled to Spain after the murder until his 2018 surrender.
Isaac, who police said was a Latin Kings gang member, was convicted of second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder and was sentenced to life in prison.
Vila Perdomo, a friend of both Isaac and Gandulla, was convicted of conspiracy to commit kidnapping and murder and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.
Gandulla, a former mixed martial arts fighter, served 36 months in prison as part of a plea agreement to testify against Issac, Vila Perdomo, and Marin. Detectives had found Gandulla’s fingerprint on Salazar’s truck.