Three Trials And 18 Years Later, S. Fla. Man Acquitted Of Murder

FORT LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami/AP) — In 1999, Seth Penalver was sentenced to die for a triple murder five years earlier. On Friday, after a third trial, a jury found him not guilty.

Jurors deliberated about 10 days before finding the 39-year-old not guilty Friday.

Penalver's first trial, which ended in 1998, resulted in a mistrial due to a hung jury. Penalver went before a second jury in 1999. In that trial, he and his co-defendeant, Pablo Ibar, were convicted of all charges and sentenced to die. Ibar's conviction was upheld a month later and he remains on death row.

Penalver was much more fortunate.

In 2006, the verdict against the 39-year-old was tossed by the Supreme Court. The High Court ruled the videotape which captured the crime did not conclusively prove Penalver was one of the killers.

Marie Rogers, Sharon Anderson, and Casmir "Butch Casey" Sucharski – who owned popular nightclub Casey's Nickelodeon Bar in Pembroke Pines – were fatally shot during a robbery at Sucharski's home in Miramar in June 1994.

Investigators said Penalver and Ibar stormed Sucharski's home, ransacked it, then executed Sucharski, Anderson, Marie Rogers. Penalver insisted he wasn't involved.

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