North Miami Beach Detective Ed Hill, tasked with investigating a straight-out-of Hollywood love triangle assassination, already suffered a blow in credibility when he began romancing one suspect’s bombshell Russian wife.
Now, Hill’s case is hanging by a thread after a defense attorney Thursday alleged in court that the detective forged key evidence.
The judge in the murder case against defendant David Superville was incensed.
“What I’ve read here is appalling,” Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Jorge Cueto told prosecutors Thursday after reviewing court documents detailing the allegations against Hill.
Superville is accused of helping set up the slaying of an electronics salesman at the behest of a jealous lover. The victim, cellphone salesman James Duarte, was shot and killed in August 2001 as he left his office in North Miami Beach.
Defense attorney Andrew Rier alleged that Hill forged a Miranda rights waiver form, which is supposed to be signed by a suspect before he gives a formal statement to police. The document reminds a suspect that he has the right to remain silent and seek representation by a lawyer.
Superville denies signing the form, which Hill did not turn over as evidence until recently. A handwriting expert on Thursday testified Thursday in court that he is certain that the form, dated March 6, 2007, was not Superville’s signature.
“I’m not an expert but it looks fake to me,” Cueto said, examining the allegedly fake signature next to a verified signature of Superville.
Cueto, however, stopped short of tossing the case in order to give prosecutors a few more days to have their own handwriting expert review the Miranda form. Superville is charged with second-degree murder.
“We’re taking the allegation very seriously,” prosecutor Matthew Baldwin told the judge.
Hill, reached by phone, said that his lawyer advised him not to comment.
The brewing legal drama adds another twist to an already outlandish murder case.
Investigators identified the suspected mastermind as Ivan Amaral, a Brazilian businessman who ran a Miami-Dade import-export business. Police believe Amaral targeted Duarte because he had dated his former girlfriend, Sara Cabral.
http://liarcatchers.com/wrongful_death.html
According to authorities, Amaral paid his house painter, Superville, and a man named Mark McKay at least $32,000 to follow Duarte for about six weeks, chronicling his every movement.
A few days after they reported his comings and goings, police believe another Brazilian, Denilson Santos, shot Duarte with a long-barreled, .22 caliber pistol.
Superville gave three statements to police, including one in which he admitted believing harm would come to Duarte.
But defense attorney Rier long insisted his client was just an amateur private eye who never knew Duarte would be killed. Santos and Amaral are believed to be in Brazil.
At the time of his arrest, Superville was married to Anna Gulevitskaya, a so-called Russian mail order bride he met through the Internet and later brought to the United States. After Superville’s arrest and release from jail on bond, he discovered romantic e-mails between Detective Hill and Gulevitskaya.
Hill and Gulevitskaya began taking vacations together, to Key West and the Bahamas. They also started an asphalt seal-coating business, a trade she learned from Superville.
Because of the affair, North Miami Beach police later suspended Hill for three weeks. Superville’s attorneys recently had asked the judge to throw out the case because of “police misconduct.”
