An attorney and former political party chief whose name has repeatedly surfaced in the ongoing federal trial of a South Florida pastor accused of conspiring to kill or kidnap Haitian President Jovenel Moïse has been turned over to U.S. custody following his arrest in Haiti.

Gordon Phenil Desir was handed over to FBI agents in Port-au-Prince on Saturday after his arrest three days earlier by the judicial unit of the Haiti National Police. Haitian authorities confirmed Desir’s initial arrest, which his lawyer said occurred in front of his law office in Petion-Ville, next to the Dominican Republic consulate.

Desir’s name first surfaced in the Haitian police investigation into the July 7, 2021, assassination of Moïse, who was shot multiple times inside his second-floor bedroom after a squad of Colombian commandos stormed his residence in the middle of the night.

He was later indicted by a Haitian investigative judge along with 50 others, including the president’s widow, Martine Moïse, and was among those appealing the charges.

Desir’s arrest came despite his having appeared in open court in Haiti on five different occasions.

In recent weeks, as the trial for Christian Emmanuel Sanon unfolds in a Miami courtroom, Desir has emerged alongside another associate of the pastor, Ashkard Pierre, as someone who drove the Colombians around, purchased food for them and translated conversations between the squad and others for former Haiti Sen. Joseph Joel John.

Although Sanon was not present at the president’s house when he was killed, prosecutors say his political ambitions and greed helped set the plot in motion, and are trying to connect him to the main conspiracy at the trial. He is also charged with providing support to the plot to overthrow Moïse.

Prosecutors have lined up a series of witnesses to connect the South Florida pastor to the plot, including two men who pleaded guilty before the prosecution of four other men who were convicted in the case earlier this year. The two men John, the former Haitian senator, and former Colombian soldier Mario Palacios Palacios.

Both men had fled to Jamaica after the assassination with the help of Haitian gang leaders, and were eventually extradited to Miami, where they are now hoping to get a reduction in their life sentences by helping prosecutors convict others in the case.

As Desir awaited his fate in a police cell in Port-au-Prince on Thursday, Palacios told a 12-member jury in Miami that Desir was one of two individuals close to Sanon who transported the Colombians round the Haitian capital and bought them food.

He said when the group was crossing into Haiti from the neighboring Dominican Republic, they were told to say they were religious missionaries going to visit “Pastor Gordon” if they were stopped.

“Now the story of you all being missionaries going to visit Pastor Gordon, was that true or false?” assistant U.S. attorney Jason Wu asked Palacios, who replied it was false.

“We were not missionaries,” Palacios said.

He testified that when the former Colombian soldiers arrived in Port-au-Prince, they went to a house owned by Gordon, the head of Ayiti 2054, Sanon’s political party. Awaiting the team there was James Solages and Joseph Vincent, two Haitian Americans who participate in the siege on Moïse's residence, and two other Colombians, Duberney Capador Giraldo and Germán Alejandro Rivera García, who served as co-leaders of the Colombian squad. Solages was one of the four men convicted earlier this year in Miami on conspiracy charges. Vincent and Rivera pleaded guilty to conspiring and supporting the plot to kill Moise. Capador was killed in Haiti as the men tried to escape police.

Text messages introduced during the trial show that the two associates of Sanon, Pierre and Desir, worked with members of Doral, Florida-based Counter Terrorist Unit Security and Counter Terrorist Federal Academy to secure firearms for the Colombians. Whether Sanon was aware of their activities remains unknown. But throughout the trial, prosecutors have drawn attention to Desir and Pierree to connect Sanon to the broader conspiracy.

The Miami federal jury has also heard from John, the former senator, who testified for five days during which he lashed out at Sanon, blaming him for his predicament.

John also named Desir as among those who often joined them in meetings during initial discussions about capturing Moïse and exiling him from Haiti.

“How often are you either seeing, speaking with or meeting with Gordon Phenil Desir?” lead prosecutor Sean McLaughlin asked John.

On at least three occasions, John said, he met with Desir at a Port-au-Prince hotel where the group was staying. He also met with Desir at Sanon’s office and at Desir’s law office next to the Dominican consulate. John testified he had also met with Desir at a site in the neighborhood of Delmas 31 in Port-au-Prince.

As the trial entered its fourth week, prosecutors repeatedly questioned John about the roles of other Haitian lawmakers and three recently indicted defendants: Pierre, gang leader Vitel’homme Innocent and Joseph Felix Badio. Their indictments marked a significant expansion of the federal conspiracy case against Sanon.

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