Daytona Beach businessman Gets gets 2 Life Sentences

On Monday April 14Th 2008 Jjudge Patrick Kennedy sentenced an ex-con turned local black business owner 34 year old Charles L. Coleman of Holly Hill ( a suburb of Daytona Beach Florida) to two life sentences with no possibility of parole for the murders of 31 year old Mr. Carl Speights and 26 year old Mr.Israel Garcia in a driveway Daytona.Beach on December 2ND of 2004. On Friday April 11Th 2008 the all white jury members smiled as they file out of the court room, and in less than One hour returned a verdict of guilty.
The conviction was a slam dunk given what Assistant State Attorney Davis had to work with, Mr. Larry Debrango 36 a local drug addict and thug, who is currently serving a eight year sentence for the November 17th 2004 home invasion of a Daytona beach drug dealers home where he fired a 40 caliber hand gun into the wall. Several months before Debrango committed the home invasion he and another person were beaten to a pulp in an altercation with Mr. Coleman. After Debrang`s conviction on the home invasion in trying to get his sentence shortened Debrango fingered Mr.Coleman as the unmasked third perpetrator in the home invasion, the victim who servered a sentence for drug trafficking after the sometime after the home invasion, testified that Mr.Coleman wasn`t one of her asailents. Mr. Coleman was acquitted of the charges and he was on vacation some 230 miles awaywhen the armed home invasion took place.
Another prosecution witness, drug addict # 2 and proud owner of 18 felony convictions 50 year old Herman ( Yard Dog ) Shepard ( who was stop ed by police on December 2nd 2004 for running a stop sign a few blocks from the December 2ND 2004 murder scene with the murder weapon which also used in the November 17Th 2008 home invasion, and a bag full of drugs, at the time of his arrest he said, that he had never seen the drugs or weapon be four. Yard Dog had also received a severe thrashing at the hands of Mr. Coleman in May or June of 2004 when Mr. Coleman confronted him after learning that Shepard was the one who burglarised his home, stealing hundreds of dollars worth of electronic equipment from Mr. Coleman`s entertainment center. a year after being sentenced to 60 years for his part in the Double homicide and the home invasion Shepards sentence was reduced to 35 years allegedly on a technicality after contacting authorities and fingering Coleman for the homicides claiming that Coleman gave him the gun and drugs and confessed to being in a shoot out. Another prosecution witness serving a 12 year sentence on unrelated charges claimed that Mr. Coleman had confessed the killings to him one night in a club in Talehassee Florida alledgedly several days after Mr. Coleman had bailed him out of jail. All four men confessed on the Witness Stand that they had changed their stories, and lied to authorities a Ieast least three times and did not know, or care weather if Mr. Coleman was guilty or Innocent they just wanted to get some of their time knocked off.
The only eye witness to the double homicide testified that he saw a tall skinny man at scene and a shorter slightly chunky man smaller than Coleman firing into the car the two victims were siting in, Mr. Coleman is about five foot nine inches tall and in December 2004 weighed about 320 pounds. A witness for the defence who dose not even know Mr. Coleman and has nothing to gain, his five felony convictions having been thrown out , his arrest and conviction were due to a case of mistaken identity testified that he over heard one off the prosecution witnesses at the jail on at least two occasions saying that he was going to lie on Mr. Coleman. Through out the trail and during his closing arguments Mr. Davis Characterised Mr. Coleman as a drug dealer, even though prosecution and defence witnesses testified under oath that since Mr. Coleman was released from prison the last time they had no knowledge of him selling drugs and most of these people saw him on a daily basis. Mr. Davis proclaimed during the end of the trail and again during his closing arguments that Mr. Coleman did the home invasion and there for was guilty of the double homicide while showing the Jury a large poster of the two murder victims as police found them at the crime scene. Something that the jury did not know was that while serving his nest to last prison sentence Mr. Coleman had received Jeasus Christ as his Lord and Savior, attened church and prayer services and Bible study classes regularlly, he earned his G.E.D. and learned a trade, he became a certified brick mason and was working five to six days a week when he got out, or that his last felony conviction in 1999 was actually a probation violation from a 1996 cocaine possession charge In the 1999 so called charge Mr. Coleman reported as ordered for his weekly drug test and since his probation officer was not there to witness the test he couldn't`t take the test so he was violated for drug possession for non compliance. Mr. Coleman was never convicted of trafficking in drugs.The three weapons charges in August 8Th 1996 were a probation violation his girlfriend at the time`s ex- boy friend broke into his ex-girl freinds apartment and tried to shoot Mr. Coleman theere was a struggle and the ex-boy friend was killed. When a person is on probation tin the State of Florida they can not so much as defend themselves if attacked or they will be violated and be charged with the original charge or have to complete any time owed to the state. On January 22ND 1995 while serving a four and a halve year sentence for possession of cocaine Mr. Coleman was transported to a hospital for treatment of a finger that he had crushed while lifting weights while he was off campus there was a riot at the prison and all the inmates including the ones that were at the hospital were charged and convicted of introduction of contraband ( drugs or weapon ) into a county facility. Twice in 1991 at age 17 Coleman and some friends rented a car from a local Crack Head something that a lot of very foolish young do from time to time, and none of them being very good drivers at the time they, were stoped by the police. and few months later those so called friends, tried to get him to ride in a stolen car he refused but when the car which was recovered days later his thumb print was found on one of the fenders. Since 1992 this alleged big bad drug dealer has not spent two years total as a free man since he was 17 years old. After being released from prison in December of 2003 Mr. Coleman worked for a construction company, then later he and two childhood friends opened up a small but successfully car wash and auto detail shop, and built their own music studio to write, produce and perform on their own tracks. Then in the summer of 2004 he fell in love with one of his customers and the agree, bitter young man who at one point had ben locked up in a mental hospital as boy, he and his pregnant mother had been abandoned by his birth father, ( his mothers first husband ) before he turned two years old,...was no more.