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Daniel LUGO
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Kidnapping - Extortion
Number of victims: 2
Date of murders:
May 25,
1995
Date
of arrest:June
3,
1995
Date of birth:
April 6,
1963
Victims profile: Frank Griga, 33, and his
girlfriend Krisztina Furton, 23
Method of murder: Poisoning (Rompun,
a horse tranquilizer)
In October 1994, Daniel Lugo
proposed to Noel Doorbal, Carl Weekes, and Stephenson Pierre that they
kidnap Marc Schiller. All those meeting knew each other through the Sun
Gym. Lugo claimed Schiller had stolen from him and gym member Jorge
Delgado. The group agreed to kidnap Schiller.
In 1991, Delgado’s wife, Linda,
worked in Schiller’s accounting office. She begged Schiller to help
Delgado. Schiller offered him a job. Delgado and Schiller became
friends, eventually starting a mortgage company together.
Frequent guests at Schiller’s home,
the Delgados got to know Schiller’s wife, Diana, and children David and
Stephanie. Schiller trusted Delgado with Schiller’s home security code.
Delgado introduced Lugo to
Schiller. Schiller disliked Lugo. In Schiller’s memoirs, Pain and Gain –
The Untold True Story, he recalls that Lugo once talked “of frauds he
had committed and started making comments insinuating that we should do
something similar.” Schiller told Delgado he did not want their
relations continuing unless Delgado split from Lugo. Delgado refused.
Schiller pulled out of the mortgage business. Schiller wrote, “I decided
to take a ten-thousand-dollar loss and give a little extra to him so
that he would not harbor ill feelings.” This strategy was to prove a
dramatic failure.
On November 15, 1994, Doorbal,
Weekes, and Mario Sanchez, whom the first two men had recruited, grabbed
Schiller as he walked to his car. “What do you want?” Schiller asked.
“You,” someone replied.
They hustled him into a van.
Schiller’s ankles were shackled, he was handcuffed, and duct tape was
wound around his head.
Someone asked, “How come you’re
allowed to have so much money while we have so little?” As Pete Collins
reported in the Miami New Times, Schiller “was in no mood” to debate
“theories of American capitalism. He kept silent.”
The van stopped at Delgado’s rented
warehouse. Schiller was bound to a chair. Someone asked if he wanted
water. His throat parched, Schiller answered, “Yes.” Someone threw water
in his face – then laughed.
Captors buzzed him with tasers,
slugged him, and burned him with his lighter. He was left alone, bound
and in a box. His bladder filled and there was no way to get to a
restroom. Schiller writes, “I urinated as I lay there on the box,
soaking my pants in the process and adding to the misery I already
felt.”
A captor, whose voice Schiller
recognized as Lugo’s, threatened to bring Schiller’s wife and children
to the warehouse. His captors ordered him to call his wife and tell her
to take the kids with her to her native Colombia.
She did.
When his captors demanded he
confirm his house alarm code and the locations of his money, he realized
Delgado was involved. A captor demanded he sign over assets. Schiller
repeatedly signed papers he could not see. The documents were notarized
by Sun Gym owner John Mese.
Schiller had been captive three
weeks when the gang decided to murder Schiller by faking a drunk driving
crash. On December 15, 1994, they forced Schiller to drink. Lugo drove
Schiller’s car into a utility pole. Gang members shoved Schiller into
the driver’s seat, poured gasoline over the car and set it ablaze.
After the group backed away and got
into another car, Schiller cheated the fate laid out for him; he got up
and ran from of the burning vehicle.
They ran him over – twice.
Convinced Schiller was dead, they sped from the scene.
Schiller, however, survived and was
rushed to Jackson Memorial Hospital where doctors operated to remove his
spleen. When Schiller regained consciousness, a surgeon said he had been
in an accident. Schiller replied he had been kidnapped and tortured. As
Collins notes, Schiller’s “credibility was undermined because he’d
entered the hospital as a suspected DUI case.”
Schiller called lawyer Gene Rosen.
After hearing Schiller’s story, Rosen advised Schiller to contact
private investigator Ed Du Bois. On December 16, 1994, Schiller called
Du Bois, who asked Schiller to write down everything he remembered and
send relevant documents.
Schiller called his sister. He was
taken to Staten Island University Hospital. On Christmas Eve 1994, he
moved into his sister’s Long Island home.
In January 1995, the gang moved
into Marc Schiller’s house that had been signed over to a Bahamian
company Lugo set up called D&J International. The gang had amassed about
$2.1 million in cash, real estate, credit card charges, and goods. Lugo
told neighbors he and his roommates were U.S. security officers.
Still using crutches, Schiller flew
to Colombia to join his wife and children. Du Bois received Schiller’s
written account of his captivity and copies of documents he had been
forced to sign.
A name on those documents startled
Du Bois who was acquainted with notary John Mese.
Du Bois met with Mese and showed
him Schiller’s letter. “Sounds like this guy had a rough time,” Mese
commented. Du Bois asked if Mese knew Delgado and Lugo. Mese said he
did. Du Bois showed him copies of documents that he had notarized that
had transferred Schiller’s assets. Du Bois claimed he could not recall
the circumstances under which he notarized them. He agreed to set up a
meeting with Lugo and Delgado.
That meeting took place on February
13, 1995. Du Bois came with bodyguard Ed Seibert. Delgado, but not Lugo,
came to Mese’s office. Delgado said, “This is all over a business deal.”
Du Bois asked incredulously, “Is it
customary in your business deals to kidnap someone, keep them hostage
for a month, beat them, torture them, try to kill them, and blow them
up?”
“I’m not going to comment,” Delgado
replied.
A third meeting took place. Delgado
said, “We’re going to give you Schiller’s money back, the one million
dollars.” There was a condition: Schiller must sign a document stating
he would never tell the story to anyone again – including police. Du
Bois said he would discuss it with Schiller.
Schiller was destitute but
reluctant to let his torturers get off scot-free. He also feared they
were dangerous to others. Schiller and Du Bois discussed the offer with
an attorney, who said that such an agreement of silence would be legally
unenforceable – and would amount to a confession. Schiller and Du Bois
decided to play along.
The Sun Gym gang found lawyer Joel
Greenberg, who drew up a contract. Collins reports, “The days dragged on
and drafts of the contract were faxed between the two camps. Schiller
agreed to every new revision, but there was no money coming in.”
Schiller filed a challenge to the
deed D&J International held to his house. The Sun Gym gang cleared
everything they could out of the house, leaving it empty. The goods were
taken to the warehouse in which Schiller had been held captive.
Du Bois realized that the offer to
return Schiller’s money was a stalling tactic. It was well past time to
go to the police.
Du Bois contacted Metro-Dade
homicide Captain Al Harper who contacted Strategic Investigations
Division (SID). SID Sergeant Gary Porterfield informed Du Bois and
Schiller that the case had been referred to the robbery bureau. Du Bois
was horrified because he believed the case needed more than that bureau
could provide.
Porterfield escorted Schiller and
Du Bois to that bureau. Du Bois saw a cop smirking and softly clapping.
Du Bois asked a secretary about this. She answered, “SID called over
here this morning and said we should expect an Academy Award-winning
performance and story from Mr. Schiller today.”
Sergeant Jim Maier and Detective
Iris Deegan interviewed Schiller. He pleaded, “Follow up on Du Bois’s
leads. These are dangerous people. Other people could be harmed.” Later,
he asked, “Do you think I’m making this whole thing up?”
Deegan answered, “Yeah, we think
you’re making it up.”
Nevertheless, Deegan investigated.
Collins writes, “Deegan paid a visit to Schiller’s home in Old Cutler
Cove. The house appeared abandoned; indeed the Sun Gym gang had emptied
it weeks before. When Deegan interviewed Schiller’s neighbors, they
identified Lugo from a police photo line-up. Yes, he was a G-man, they
said, Yes, they’d accepted UPS deliveries for him, packages addressed to
Marc Schiller. Yes, they recalled, Schiller and his family had
disappeared sometime before the previous Thanksgiving.”
No arrests were made.
Doorbal learned of phone-sex-line
millionaire Frank Griga and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton. Doorbal
proposed to Lugo that this couple be kidnapped and Griga’s money stolen.
The couple accepted Doorbal’s
invitation to come to his apartment, ostensibly to sign for an
investment. Lugo was also there.
Doorbal tried to subdue Griga,
triggering a vicious fistfight. Furton screamed. Lugo grabbed her and
injected her with the horse tranquilizer Rompun.
Doorbal put Griga in a headlock.
Griga lost consciousness. Lugo and Doorbal planned to haul Griga off to
the warehouse and threaten him into signing over his money. Much to
their chagrin, they realized before they could do it that Griga was
dying.
They interrogated Furton for the
code to enter Griga’s home. She answered and fell silent.
Another conspirator, corrections
officer John Raimondo, arrived.
Lugo drove to Griga’s home and
attempted to get inside with the code Furton had given him. It did not
work. Lugo called Doorbal who said Furton was dead. Lugo returned to
Doorbal’s apartment where he asked Delgado to return the next morning
with a truck.
The next morning, the group loaded
two corpses into the truck. They drove to the warehouse. Using a hatchet
and chainsaw, Lugo and Doorbal dismembered the bodies.
On May 28, 1995, Lugo, Doorbal and
a third man, who did not know that torsos and limbs were in the metal
drums, took them to a remote area in Dade County. Another drum
containing heads, hands, and feet was deposited in the Everglades. Lugo
then traveled to The Bahamas. Police arrested him there in June 1995.
Doorbal, Raimondo, and Mese were also arrested.
Lugo was convicted of many crimes
including two counts of first-degree murder and sentenced to death.
Doorbal was convicted of two first-degree murders and sentenced to
death. Mese was convicted of multiple counts including conspiracy to
commit racketeering and sentenced to 30 years imprisonment. Raimondo was
convicted of crimes including attempted extortion and sentenced to eight
years imprisonment. Delgado testified for the state; in exchange, his
crimes were plea-bargained down to 15 years for the murders of Griga and
Furton and five years for Schiller’s attempted murder.
As Schiller left the courthouse
after testifying against his torturers, federal agents arrested him for
Medicare fraud. On March 17, 1999, Schiller pleaded guilty to one count
of fraud. He was sentenced to 46 months imprisonment. Released in 2001,
Schiller claims he was innocent but pleaded guilty because he “had no
fight” left.
The movie Pain & Gain, starring
Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson, opens April 26, 2013. Its form as an
action-comedy has angered some. Frank Griga’s sister derides the film’s
sympathetic depiction of the gang as ambitious bunglers as “ridiculous.”
Instead of separate characters for Schiller and Griga, a composite
victim named “Victor Kershaw” is depicted. He is first seen surrounded
by bikini-clad beauties. Schiller asserts he was a “homebody” with
little in common with Kershaw although Griga, who made his fortune in
the phone-sex business, may have resembled the womanizing Kershaw.
While there may be comic aspects to
the bungling of the Sun Gym Gang, their heinous crimes of kidnapping,
torture, and murder are anything but humorous.
Defendants
Daniel Lugo – convicted,
sentenced to death (2 death sentences)
Adrian Noel Doorbal – convicted, sentenced to death (2 death
sentences)
John Carl Mese – convicted,
sentenced to 56 years (died in prison)
Jorge Delgado – pled guilty,
sentenced to 13 years in prison, released 11/27/2002
Carl Weekes – convicted,
sentenced to 10 years in prison, released 5/15/2002
Stevenson Pierre –
convicted, sentenced to 7 years in prison, released 5/24/2001
John Raimondo – pled guilty
(to kidnapping), sentenced to 8 years in prison, released 2/27/2002
Three Men Found Guilty In Double
Murder
By Luisa Yanez Miami Bureau - Sun-Sentinel.com
May 6, 1998
A court clerk read a litany of
guilty verdicts on Tuesday to the leader of a gang of extortionists
whose greedy plot ended in one of South Florida's most gruesome double
murders.
By the time the Miami-Dade County
clerk caught her breath, Daniel Lugo had been found guilty of 40 counts,
ranging from murder to kidnapping to extortion.
Lugo, 35, a former personal
trainer, sat stone-faced.
Two co-defendants, Adrian Doorbal,
23, and John Carl Mese, 59, heard a similar string of guilty verdicts
from a second jury.
Lugo and Doorbal, body-building
buddies who frequented Sun Gym in Miami Lakes, now face the electric
chair.
Mese, a North Miami accountant who
prosecutors said handled the paperwork in the gang's scheme to extort
money from rich victims, faces life in prison.
Lead prosecutor Gail Levine refused
to comment until after Circuit Judge Alex Ferrer decides the fate of the
defendants. Sentencing is set for May 26.
``We think we have a very good case
for appeal,'' said Ronald Guralnick, Lugo's attorney.
Two juries convicted all three men
of a slew of charges in connection with the 1995 murder, kidnapping and
mutilation death of Frank Griga, 33, who ran a $5 million phone sex
empire, and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton, 23, a former exotic
dancer.
The Hungarian couple lived in a $1
million Golden Beach condominium in north Miami-Dade County. They ended
up decapitated, their bodies stuffed into 55-gallon oil drums, which
were sealed with a torch and dumped in a canal at the edge of the
Florida Everglades. Their severed heads were later found in Broward
County off Interstate 75.
The three were also convicted of
the attempted murder and kidnapping of another wealthy victim, Marcelo
Schiller, an Argentine businessman. A gang of eight held Schiller
hostage for weeks in a warehouse in 1994, forcing him to sign over $1.26
million. Gang members spent the money on cars, Rolexes and women,
prosecutors said. Schiller survived the attack and testified against the
defendants.
Four of the eight co-conspirators
have turned state witness in exchange for reduced sentences; another
awaits trial. The first-degree murder conviction of Mese, who did not
take part in the murders according to witness testimony, surprised his
attorney, Bruce Fleischer.
He blamed it on his client's joint
trial with Doorbal.
The scheme that ended in violence
began three years ago, when Lugo made contact with Griga about a
business deal.
Instead, the couple was ambushed
and kidnapped. Furton was injected with a horse tranquilizer. Griga was
eventually bludgeoned to death, but not before he signed over property
to the group, prosecutors said.
Miami-Dade County police cracked
the double murder mystery while investigating the abduction of Schiller.
‘Pain & Gain,’ a movie based on
South Florida murders, is a painful reminder to victims’ families
Victims’ relatives say
action-comedy ‘Pain & Gain’ starring Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson
trivializes a Dade couple’s murder.
By David Ovalle - MiamiHerald.com
February 22, 2013
Their dark schemes, hatched amid
steroids and dumbbells, strip clubs and exotic women, ended in spasms of
shocking violence.
A millionaire businessman stripped
of his fortune, tortured for weeks and left for dead in a burning car
wreck. And a wealthy Hungarian couple murdered, their bodies hacked up
and scattered in drums and buckets across South Florida.
The bizarre and bloody saga of the
Miami Lakes Sun Gym crew was always the stuff of Hollywood drama — and
15 years after Daniel Lugo and Adrian Noel Doorbal were sent to Death
Row, their story will be rekindled in the upcoming film Pain & Gain.
Prosecutors, former detectives and
the sister of one of the victims, however, are concerned that the movie
— the tagline: “Their American Dream is Bigger than Yours” — will
portray the killers in a sympathetic light, and play down the brutality
of the murders.
“I think it’s ridiculous. It’s
horrible what happened to them,” said Zsuzsanna Griga, the sister of
Frank Griga, murdered along with his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton. “I
don’t want the American public to be sympathetic to the killers.”
‘A mockery’
Said Miami-Dade State Attorney
Katherine Fernandez Rundle: “What Hollywood is going to do Hollywood is
going to do. My thoughts are with the victims. To trivialize this
horrible tale of torture and death makes a mockery out of their lives
and the justice system.”
Billed as an action-comedy, Pain &
Gain opens in April and stars Mark Wahlberg as Lugo, Anthony Mackie as
Doorbal and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as Paul Doyle, an apparent
fictional composite character based on several members of the murderous
crew.
The director: Michael Bay, of
Transformers and Armageddon fame.
The “true story” trailer certainly
strikes a dark comedic tone. It features a fiery explosion, barreling
cars, SWAT police jumping out of an armored vehicle and Wahlberg’s Lugo
character agonizing about his dead-end life as a fitness trainer.
There was nothing light-hearted
about the crimes they committed.
Over a series of meetings in 1994,
Lugo, Doorbal and Jorge Delgado, who pounded weights together at the Sun
Gym and frequented strip clubs, hatched a plan to kidnap and extort Marc
Schiller, owner of West Miami-Dade Schlotzsky’s deli.
Schiller had once employed Delgado
as a business assistant. Also in on the plan: John Carl Mese, the gym’s
owner, a former bodybuilder and Miami Shores accountant.
Their attempts to kidnap Schiller
were certainly bumbling — once, they laid across blankets on Schiller’s
lawn, waiting to whisk him away, but got spooked by a barking dog.
Finally, they kidnapped Schiller
outside his deli.
During a month in captivity at a
warehouse, they tortured him, sometimes with lighters, until he signed
over his posh South Miami house, a $2 million life insurance policy and
$1.2 million in investments.
Forced by his kidnappers, Schiller
also ordered his wife and children to go to Colombia.
Staged crash
The gang moved into Schiller’s
house, drained his bank accounts and finally plied him with liquor and
staged a 3 a.m. crash into a tree, also running him over.
But Schiller survived.
He did not notify police right
away, however. He called his lawyer, who recommended private
investigator Ed Du Bois III (played by Ed Harris in the movie). They
went to work trying to negotiate the return of $1.26 million.
Ultimately, four months after
Schiller left captivity, Du Bois — who has a cameo in the movie —
notified skeptical Miami-Dade police. The investigation went nowhere.
The Sun Gym crew’s next target:
Frank Griga, 33, a Hungarian immigrant who had earned his fortune in the
900-phone sex business. A lover of fast cars and boats, he lived in
Golden Beach with his 23-year-old girlfriend.
On the pretense of proposing a
business deal, Lugo and Doorbal lured the couple to Miami Lakes.
“My brother. He didn’t know how to
say no,” said Zsuzsanna Griga, who talked to her brother every day by
telephone from Hungary.
“He was a very nice guy, a very
simple guy who helped everyone.”
Inside Doorbal’s apartment, the
kidnapping went horribly awry. Griga fought back and was beaten to
death. Furton was drugged, fatally, with horse tranquilizers.
The bodies were whisked away to the
same warehouse where Schiller had been held captive.
A trip was made to Home Depot to
buy dust masks, rags, a chain saw and a hatchet. The bodies were
dismembered. Eventually, their body parts were found in drums and
buckets discarded along rural highways in Dade and Broward.
By then, with Griga and Furton
reported missing, Miami-Dade homicide detectives had zeroed in on the
group and had made arrests, including Lugo, who had fled to the Bahamas.
Charged with murder, racketeering,
kidnapping and a slew of other charges, the 12-week trial in 1998
featured more than 10,000 exhibits. Prosecutor Gail Levine, in her
closing argument, said the plot “was like a bad movie.”
“How could something like this
occur in our society?” she asked jurors, gesturing to Lugo and Doorbal.
“And how could there be evil people like these men?”
Jurors in 1998 convicted Lugo,
Doorbal and Mese, who later died in prison. Delgado pleaded guilty to
being an accessory and received 15 years in prison.
Others involved in the kidnappings
and murders pleaded guilty in the case.
Schiller, who testified in the
trial against his attackers, was arrested afterward for Medicare fraud.
He later pleaded guilty and was released from prison in 2001.
Renewed interest
The South Florida-filmed movie,
which received $4.2 million in state tax breaks, has created renewed
interest in the real-life case.
ABC News recently chronicled the
story on the documentary-show Revenge For Real.
Long free from prison, Schiller has
recently penned a first-person book, Pain & Gain: The Untold True Story.
Bay’s movie is based on “Pain &
Gain,” a series of Miami New Times articles, by Pete Collins, published
in 1999. He is soon releasing his book on the case.
“It’s sad because we’ve dealt with
the families, years of prosecutions and appeals,” said retired
Miami-Dade homicide Sgt. Felix Jimenez. “But at the same time, it’s
Hollywood. What do you expect? I recognize it’s Hollywood and they’re
entitled to poetic license. Nothing we can do about it.”
Daniel Lugo
DC# M16321 DOB: 04/06/63
Eleventh
Judicial Circuit, Dade County, Case# 95-17381C
Sentencing Judge: The Honorable
Alex E. Ferrer
Attorney, Trial: Ronald S.
Guralnick – Private
Attorney, Direct Appeal: Rafael
Rodriguez – Private
Attorney, Collateral Appeals:
Roy D. Wasson – Registry
Date of Offenses: 11/15/94,
05/24/95, 05/25/95
Date of Sentence: 07/17/98
Circumstances of Offense:
Daniel Lugo was convicted for,
among other charges, the attempted murder of Marc Schiller as well as
the murders of Griga and Furton.
Kidnapping, Extortion and
Attempted Murder of Marc Schiller:
Schiller was a successful
executive who hired Jorge Delgado to help with his business. Delgado
often visited Schiller’s house and the two eventually became good
friends. Delgado worked out at Sun Gym where Lugo worked. Lugo began
joining Delgado on visits to Schiller’s house. Through Lugo, Delgado
also became acquainted with the codefendants, Noel Doorbal and John
Mese.
In 1994, Schiller questioned Delgado’s business practices, which
caused an argument between the two. Schiller told Delgado he was
severing the business ties between them. Lugo convinced Delgado that
Schiller had cheated the two of them in billing operations. Upon Lugo’s
advice, Delgado hired John Mese as a replacement accountant. Delgado
testified that Lugo produced documents to back up his claims.
When
questioned by Delgado, Schiller denied any wrongdoing. It was at this
time that Lugo, along with friends of his, made a plan to kidnap
Schiller and force him to sign over assets Lugo believed Schiller owed
him and Delgado.
Although Delgado had originally told Lugo he wanted
nothing to do with the plan, he became very involved in the plot.
Delgado gave specific information to Lugo about Schiller’s life
regarding his schedule, details about his home, and family to Lugo.
Lugo and his group then secretly observed Schiller.
After a few attempts, they were
successful in kidnapping Schiller. They took him to a warehouse Delgado
had rented. Lugo to demanded that Schiller sign over his assets to
him. After Schiller refused, the group began beating him and shocking
him with a stun gun. Schiller finally agreed to sign after Lugo had
threatened to harm Schiller’s wife and children. Schiller unwillingly
began signing checks and documents, giving Lugo possession of his
property and assets. During this time, Schiller was blindfolded, so he
could not see what he was signing.
Three weeks into the kidnapping, a
member of the group approached Lugo and convinced him they needed to
kill Schiller because he could possibly identify some or all of those
involved. In the fourth week of the abduction, they forced Schiller to
consume a large amount of alcohol. Lugo took Schiller’s car and ran it
into a pole to make it appear as though Schiller was involved in a car
accident.
They took Schiller to the car and put him in the front seat.
They then poured gasoline over the vehicle and set it on fire. The
group was then ready to leave the scene in another car when they saw
Schiller in the road. Lugo then told the driver to run him over, which
the driver did. They left the scene convinced that Schiller was dead.
They found out later that Schiller had actually survived, and, at his
request, was transported to New York. While Schiller was in New York,
Lugo and his group emptied his house and bank accounts. Schiller was
able to identify Lugo in his testimony because he recognized Lugo’s
voice during his abduction.
The police found items described as
belonging to Schiller in Lugo’s possession. Also discovered, were
checks from Schiller’s checking account, which were payable to Mese.
Abduction, attempted
Extortion, and the Murders of Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton:
Noel Doorbal, one of the men
involved in the abduction of Schiller with Lugo, learned of another
wealthy executive, Frank Griga, and his girlfriend, Krisztina Furton.
Doorbal relayed this information and convinced Lugo to form a plan to
kidnap and extort the couple. Lugo accepted and was again in full
participation of the planning process.
Lugo and Doorbal planned to
visit Griga under the guise of presenting a business proposition. They
planned to gain his confidence through this encounter; however, Griga
was not interested.
During their second visit on 05/24/95, Lugo and Doorbal were to carry out the abduction, but Lugo aborted the plan.
They returned later that day and invited them to dinner. Lugo’s plan
was to lure the couple to Doorbal’s apartment. The couple did follow
Lugo and Doorbal to the apartment.
Jorge Delgado visited Lugo and Doorbal at Doorbal’s apartment on 05/25/95, where he was informed that
Griga was killed during a fight with Doorbal. Once Furton, Griga’s
girlfriend, knew Griga was seriously hurt, she started screaming. It
was at that time that Lugo restrained her and injected her with Rompun,
a horse tranquilizer, to subdue her.
They then started focusing on Furton for information about the code to enter Griga’s home. Doorbal
had carried Furton to the bottom of the staircase, where she began to
scream again. She was then injected a second time with the horse
tranquilizer.
After answering a few questions, Furton decided not to
supply them with any more information. They injected her with a third
dose of the tranquilizer, which resulted in her death. Lugo hired a
corrections officer, John Raimondo, to kill Furton and dispose of both
the bodies. He did neither.
Lugo went to Griga’s house with
what he thought was the code to get in. Once he realized he did not
have the correct code, he called Doorbal who informed Lugo that Furton
was dead. When Lugo returned to Doorbal’s apartment, he told Delgado to
go home and to return to Doorbal’s apartment the next morning with a
truck. The next morning, both bodies were loaded onto the truck and
they took them to the warehouse in Hialeah. After Lugo and Doorbal had
purchased the necessary equipment, they proceeded to dismember the
bodies. They also attempted to burn the heads, hands and feet. Lugo
and Doorbal removed everything from Doorbal’s apartment that had blood
on it.
On May 27 Lugo made a trip to the Bahamas to try and gain access
to Griga’s bank account. He was not successful and returned to Miami.
On May 28, Lugo, Doorbal and another man disposed of all the body
parts. Lugo ran off to the Bahamas, where he was arrested in June 1995.
*****
Trial Summary:
10/02/96
Defendant was indicted on the following:
Count I - Conspiracy to
Commit Racketeering
Count II - Racketeering
Count III - First-Degree
Murder (Furton)
Count IV - First-Degree Murder (Griga)
Count V - Kidnapping
Count VI - Kidnapping
Count VIII - Attempted Extortion
Count IX - Grand Theft Auto
Count X - Attempted
First-Degree Murder
Count XI - Armed Kidnapping
Count XII - Armed Robbery
Count XIII - Burglary
Count XIV - Grand
Theft (Second-Degree)
Count XV - Grand
Theft Auto
Count XVI - Possession
of an Identification Plate
Count XVII - Arson
Count XVIII - Extortion
Count XIX - Money Laundering
(Counts XIX – XXVII)
Count XXVIII - Forgery
(Counts XXVIII, XXXI, XXXIV, XXVII, XL, XLIII)
Count XXX - Uttering a
Forged Instrument (Counts XXX, XXIII, XXXVI, IXL, XLII, XLV)
Count XLVI - Conspiracy to Commit a
First-Degree Felony
05/05/98
Defendant was found guilty on all the charges on the indictment.
06/11/98
Upon advisory sentencing, the jury voted, by an 11 to 1 majority, for
the death sentence.
07/17/98
Defendant was sentenced as follows:
Count I - Conspiracy to
Commit Racketeering – 30 years
Count II - Racketeering – 30
years
Count III - First-Degree
Murder (Furton) – Death
Count IV - First-Degree Murder
(Griga) – Death
Count V - Kidnapping – Life
Count VI - Kidnapping – Life
Count VIII - Attempted Extortion
– 5 years
Count IX - Grand Theft Auto – 5
years
Count X - Attempted
First-Degree Murder – Life
Count XI - Armed Kidnapping –
Life
Count XII - Armed Robbery – 15
years
Count XIII - Burglary
– 15 years
Count XIV - Grand
Theft (Second-Degree) – 15 years
Count XV - Grand
Theft Auto – 5 years
Count XVI - Possession
of an Identification Plate – 5 years
Count XVII - Arson – 30 years
Count XVIII - Extortion – 30 years
Count XIX - Money Laundering
(Counts XIX – XXVII) – 15 years
each
Count XXVIII - Forgery
(Counts XXVIII, XXXI, XXXIV, XXVII, XL, XLIII) – 5 years each
Count XXX - Uttering a
Forged Instrument (Counts XXX, XXIII, XXXVI, IXL, XLII, XLV) – 5 years each.
Count XLVI - Conspiracy
to Commit a First-Degree Felony – 15 years
*****
Codefendant Information:
Noel Doorbal
(DC# M16320)
was indicted on 10/02/96 and sentenced on 07/17/98 on the following (CC#
95-17381-B):
Count I - Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering – 30 years
Count
II - Racketeering – 30 years
Count III - First-Degree
Murder (Furton) - Death
Count IV - First-Degree Murder
(Griga) - Death
Count V - Kidnapping – Life
Count VI - Kidnapping – Life
Count VIII - Attempted Extortion
– 5 years
Count IX - Grand Theft Auto – 5 years
Count X - Attempted First-Degree Murder – Life
Count XI - Armed Kidnapping –
Life
Count XII - Armed Robbery - Life
Count XIII - Burglary
– 15 years
Count XIV - Grand
Theft (Second-Degree) – 15 years
Count XVII - Arson – 30 years
Count XVIII - Extortion – 30 years
Count XLVI - Conspiracy to Commit a
First-Degree Felony 15 years
John Mese(DC# Q03835)
was indicted on 10/02/96 (CC# 95-17381-F) for the kidnapping, extortion,
and murders of Griga and Furton and the kidnapping and extortion of Marc
Schiller. A jury returned guilty verdicts on all counts of the
indictment; however, the judge set aside the convictions pertaining to
the Griga/Furton crimes. On 07/20/98, Mese was sentenced to 56
years’ imprisonment for the kidnapping and extortion of Schiller.
Mese appealed and the State cross-appealed the sentence to the Florida
District Court of Appeal, Third District. On 06/19/02, the DCA ruled
that the trial judge improperly set aside the two RICO convictions and
ordered a new sentencing hearing to be conducted on those counts.
On
01/15/03, Mese was sentenced to 30 years’ imprisonment for one count of
Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering.
John Raimondo
(DC# 198195)
was indicted on 10/02/96 (CC# 95-17381-I) on one count each of
Conspiracy to Commit Racketeering, First-Degree Murder (Furton),
Kidnapping (Furton), and Attempted Extortion. The State nolle prossed
all but the kidnapping charge, and Raimondo was convicted and sentenced
to eight years imprisonment for the crime.
Jorge Delgado
(DC# 126314)
was sentenced to two prison terms of 15 and 5 years for his role in the
murders of Griga and Furton and the attempted murder of Schiller (in
return for testifying for the State).
*****
Case Information:
On
09/28/98, Lugo filed his Direct Appeal to the Florida Supreme Court.
Lugo’s appeal claimed error in the trial court because they did not
grant him separate trials for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organization counts, the Schiller counts and the Griga-Furton counts.
The trial court did separate Lugo’s trial from his codefendants but
found that he could be tried on all counts in one trial. This Court
agreed with the trial court in that each count was connected and similar
enough to try in one trial. They further stated that, even if the
counts were tried separately, the charges could be introduced as
evidence in each trial.
Lugo also contended that there was insufficient
evidence in the convictions of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organization counts. Another issue Lugo raised in the appeal was that
the State made improper comments during opening and closing arguments.
In addition, Lugo raised that there were errors in the introduction of
evidence from previous convictions as well as Brady claims. The Court
found no reversible errors in the trial courts decision and affirmed the
convictions and sentences on 02/20/03.
On
07/28/03, Lugo filed a Petition for Writ Certiorari to the United States
Supreme Court, which was denied on 10/06/03.
On
04/21/05, Lugo filed a 3.850 Motion to the Circuit Court, which was
denied on 03/29/06.
On
07/31/06, Lugo filed a 3.850 Appeal to the Florida Supreme Court, which
is currently pending.
FloridaCapitalCases.state.fl.us
Muscle and
mayhem: The real-life story behind Miami's murderous Sun Gym gang
By Chuck
Stevenson, Jamie Stolz, Tamara Weitzman and Alicia Tejada - CBSNews.com
April 27, 2013
(CBS News) MIAMI -- Zsuzsanna
Griga will never forget the kidnapping of her brother, Frank, and his
girlfriend, Krisztina Furton in 1995.
"...he loved fast cars, beautiful
girls and life," Griga said. "She was very beautiful. She was only 23
years old. My heart breaks when I think of what she went through."
Felix Jimenez, now retired from
the Metro-Dade Police homicide department, was the lead detective on the
case.
"Very handsome couple, they
looked like they were made for each other," Jimenez explained. "Frank
was the American success story -- an immigrant, came to this country
with $10 dollars in his pocket and made millions."
He came from Budapest, Hungary,
and found a minimum wage job in New York City.
"It was like a service station
... he was changing the oil, washing cars," Zsuzsanna Griga explained.
"What he accomplished ... should make everyone proud because he went
from nowhere to a millionaire on his own just by using his own
resources."
In fewer than 10 years, Frank was
living in an upscale Miami enclave called "Golden Beach" and running a
phone sex line empire. He was on top of the world until May 24, 1995.
"I started calling him and he
wouldn't pick up the phone," Zsuzsanna Griga said. "I kind of knew that
something really bad happened then..."
The disappearance of Frank and
Krisztina would become one of Miami's most notorious crimes. But who
would want to kidnap them?
"How did this all go down?"
Roberts asked Jimenez.
"So we got a call that there was
a missing -- a wealthy couple that was missing out of Golden Beach," he
explained. "That was a little strange because in homicide we need a
crime scene. We need a dead body to respond to. They're few and far
between when there's actually a missing person that we would respond. It
has to be highly suspicious circumstances. And it so happened in this
case there was."
At first, the detectives hoped
they could find Frank and Krisztina alive.
"...the missing Hungarian couple
had said that they were going to the Bahamas the -- the-- following day.
So all their friends assumed that the reason they weren't home was
because they were in the Bahamas," said Jimenez.
All that changed, though, when a
police made a stunning discovery.
"Their Lamborghini was found in
an abandoned, wooded area far outside of Miami," said Jimenez.
"At this point, we realized that
something bad -- something bad had happened to this couple," said Sam
Garafalo.
Garafalo, also retired, worked
the case for his boss, Felix Jimenez. They are now both CBS News
consultants.
"We got information and -- as
soon as we got it, we ended up going to Golden Beach," he said.
"So you have a missing Hungarian
couple and a Lamborghini," Roberts noted.
"We had more than that. We had a
next door neighbor ... that had actually been to the house the last time
they were seen alive and they invited her in and introduced her to two
muscle-bound men that were driving a gold Mercedes and told them they
were going out to dinner to discuss a business deal," said Jimenez.
The neighbor would tell police
she'd met the driver of the gold Mercedes and knew his name: Danny Lugo.
"Danny was a big muscular guy,"
said Jimenez.
Police would soon learn that Lugo
was a burley ex-convict who had served time for running a phony loan
scam operation. After his release, he became the manager of a suburban
Miami health club called Sun Gym.
"This is where the Sun Gym was
located. This is what we would call the gang headquarters," said
Jimenez.
"Danny Lugo was a Puerto
Rican-Cuban kid from the Bronx," added Garafalo.
"He thought he was smarter than
anybody else," Jimenez added. "He had a way of convincing people to do
things they didn't want to do."
The investigation into Frank and
Krisztina's disappearance continued. Detectives learned Lugo was the
leader of a group made up of drifters and petty thieves who hung out at
the Sun Gym. His main partner in crime was another muscle head, Adrian
Doorbal.
"Adrian Doorbal was Danny Lugo's
protege," said Jimenez.
"Doorbal was just an evil, he
reminded me of just an evil guy," said Garafalo.
"He was a steroid freak. ... He's
like 5 foot 7 tall and 5 foot 7 wide," Jimenez continued. "He'd do
anything and everything that Danny Lugo told him to do."
In May 1995, Danny Lugo and
Adrian Doorbal would be at the center of one of the most notorious
crimes in Miami history: a complicated and deadly plot that involved
kidnapping, money and murder.
Eighteen years later, the story
was too much for Hollywood to resist. In the new movie "Pain and Gain",
Lugo is portrayed by Mark Wahlberg.
The film, released by Paramount
Pictures, is part of Viacom, a company affiliated with CBS.
The movie captures what Lugo was
about in real life: his infatuation with getting rich, says Patty
Barrientos, who worked alongside him at a gym.
"He'd say... 'I'm gonna have a
lot of money... I wanna grow, I wanna be somebody very big...'" said
Barrientos.
Asked if he was money hungry,
Barrientos told Roberts, "Yes."
With the little money he had, he
spent a lot of it at the Solid Gold Strip Club. It was here he began an
affair with a one-time Penthouse model-turned exotic dancer named Sabina
Petrescu.
"She was a very, very attractive
woman," Jimenez said. "She fell for Danny and believed everything he
told her."
Petrescu was another recent
immigrant who made a splash in Miami. She was a finalist in the Miss
Romania contest in 1990, then came to the United States to begin a
modeling career. She made it onto the pages of Penthouse magazine, but
filled the rest of her time as an exotic dancer.
"Danny treated her well ... he
gave her a BMW," said Jimenez.
Petrescu would play a crucial
role as police continued gathering more evidence connecting Lugo and
Doorbal to the disappearance of Frank and Krisztina.
"We have the housekeeper who was
also at the home when the -- the musclemen were there. We have the next
door neighbor. We show them photographs. They make identification. So we
have a lot to go on," said Jimenez.
Search warrants were executed for
the homes of Lugo and Doorbal and their associates.
"I mean we had so many cops it
wasn't even funny," said Garafalo.
"... in fact we mobilized right
in this park," Jimenez pointed out.
Police quickly hit pay dirt in
the apartment of Danny Lugo's girlfriend.
"There was some damning evidence
there ... bloody clothing belonging to Frank and Krisztina, there was
the kidnap kit -- a case with duct tape ...guns, [stun guns], handcuffs
-- there was so much evidence in that apartment," said Jimenez.
Soon Adrian Doorbal was in
custody and refused to talk to police.
"The main guy that we're after,
Danny Lugo, is nowhere to be found," said Jimenez.
Danny Lugo had given them the
slip.
"This case was all over the
news," retired homicide detective Felix Jimenez told Troy Roberts.
"Miami was riveted as to this attractive Hungarian couple ... you know,
this yellow Lamborghini found in the Everglades and that they're missing
and they continue to be missing."
But detectives had lost their
lead suspect, Danny Lugo.
"Lugo's gone, we have a warrant
for his arrest," Jimenez said. "He's just vanished. We don't know where
he is."
They did have one good lead.
"We had his girlfriend, Sabina
Petrescu," said Jimenez.
Sabina Petrescu, the magazine
model-turned stripper, had quite a story to tell. She said her boyfriend
wasn't a criminal. He told her he was a CIA agent.
"Number one, she was smitten with
Danny Lugo, and number two, I think she believed what he was saying --
that he was a CIA operative -- that he was working for the U.S.
government in kidnapping people that were dangerous to this country,"
said Jimenez.
Danny Lugo had convinced her he
was a spy on a secret mission. So for now, she wouldn't tell detectives
where Lugo was. But it would be just a matter of time.
In an incredible twist of fate,
detectives in another department at Metro-Dade police had also been
looking at Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal. Their case was the bizarre
kidnapping of another Miami millionaire. Now, Lugo and Doorbal were
front and center of two cases.
The Miami millionaire was Marc
Schiller, an accountant.
"He was Argentinean born, grew up
in the U.S., went to school, got his CPA license, he had a medical
billing business that did very well," Jimenez explained.
The two crimes would become one
huge case -- a case that Judge Alex Ferrer, now TV's "Judge Alex", and
Miami-Dade prosecutor Gail Levine would never forget.
"This case was what made me who I
am today, a career prosecutor," said Levine.
"Of all the cases I've tried this
is by far the most fascinating case," said Ferrer.
Schiller would eventually tell
police a wild story -- that five months before the murders of Frank and
Krisztina, Schiller himself had been grabbed by a gang. Bound and
gagged, he'd be dumped at a warehouse and held for more than a month.
"This is a warehouse that was
rented by one of the members of the Sun Gym Gang," Jimenez told Roberts
as they stood outside the building.
"They drove the van with Schiller
inside into the warehouse."
"Mark Schiller was the perfect
victim because he was involved in something that was illegal," said
Levine.
"I think he got greedy and
started to get involved in Medicare fraud," said Jimenez.
Danny Lugo learned about Schiller
from Jorge Delgado, who also worked out at Sun Gym. Schiller and Delgado
had been in business.
"Him and Jorge Delgado started a
mortgage business together," said Jimenez.
But business went badly, and
later Schiller and Delgado had a falling out over a deal. Delgado wanted
revenge and told Lugo that Schiller would be an easy mark.
"They basically go 'He's not goin'
to the cops ... he's involved in Medicare fraud. We'll shake him
down...'" said Ferrer.
So what was the plan?" Roberts
asked Levine.
"The plan was actually very
simple: kidnap Marc Schiller, have him write his own ransom and then
kill him," she replied.
"Simple as that?" Roberts asked.
"Simple as that," said Levine.
But catching Schiller to shake
him down was tougher than it looked.
"It would be funny if it wasn't
so tragic ... because they made these stupid attempts," Ferrer
explained. "They would hide in his yard under blankets like they were
some kind of ninja ... waiting for him to come out and get the paper at
five in the morning and they were gonna kidnap him ... only to be
surprised that cars were coming down the street and lighting them up
with their headlights...
"So then they're running through
yards, screaming 'abort, abort like they're on some secret mission for
the government," he continued.
Hollywood could not resist this
crazy scene. The gang used costumes and comic book code names like
Batman and Robin and tried to stage an accident to kidnap Schiller.
"They're waiting for him to drive
by to stage this accident," Ferrer explained. "They turned the car off
and as he's driving by they're cranking it and the car won't start and
he goes driving by. So it's like the Keystone Cops gone bad."
Finally, after multiple attempts,
the "gang that couldn't shoot straight" enlisted some serious muscle and
planned to take Schiller down outside a restaurant he owned.
"They waited in a van and they
had their biggest gym rats come out," said Levine.
A co-conspirator, who "48 Hours"
agreed to keep anonymous, worked with the Sun Gym gang to kidnap
Schiller.
"I'm a good hearted person. I
just made a mistake," he told Roberts.
"I was pretty hardcore..." he
said of his weightlifting.
"At your peak you could bench 475
pounds?" Roberts asked.
"505," he replied.
"505? How big were you?"
"I was like a lean 270 pounds,"
he said.
"Big guy... intimidating,"
Roberts commented.
"Yeah."
He was desperate for money and
sometimes worked at the Sun Gym. In 1994, Lugo and his gang were
offering cash for a little help.
"He told me, 'Look, I gotta talk
to you about something,'" the co-conspirator continued. "'... he owes me
money'... and 'I need you to come with me and help me collect.'"
He agreed, and in November of
1994, brought his gun.
"So you had your .45 with you?"
Roberts asked.
"I always carry my firearm," he
said.
"We were parked right there," the
man said, standing with Roberts in the parking lot, "... and as soon as
he came out of his restaurant, they saw him so they said... 'There he
is, there he is...'"
"It was one of those days in
Miami where a storm was coming in," Schiller recalled.
Schiller is a man who cheated
death and whose harrowing ordeal is now dramatized by actor Tony
Shalhoub in the new movie.
"Why are you alive?" Roberts
asked Schiller.
"I guess its divine intervention.
I can't explain it," he replied.
Schiller's nightmare started just
as he was about to head for home after work.
"I walked out to my car ... as
soon as I opened my door ... I'm grabbed from behind by three guys,"
said Schiller.
"... and as soon as they grabbed
him the guy grabbed the steering wheel... he was screaming the
co-conspirator told Roberts.
"They just kept punching me ...
and they had a Taser... and they kept Tasering [sic] me," said Schiller.
"They were Tasing him," the
co-conspirator continued. "He was screaming ... 'What do you want, what
do you want with me, what are you doin?"
"At that point, they dragged me
to the van -- a white van," Schiller said. "They handcuffed my hands
behind my back."
"You must have been terrified,"
Roberts commented.
"I thought they were gonna take
me and kill me," he said.
"They duct taped him... they put
tape on his mouth ... and we took off right out of here," said the
co-conspirator.
"When we got to the warehouse,"
said Schiller, "they called the boss."
The boss was Danny Lugo, the same
man at the center of the Krisztina Furton-Frank Griga murder case.
"... told him, 'The eagle has
landed.' I guess I was the eagle," said Schiller.
"When I left ... Schiller was
sitting in the chair ... he was taped up -- hands and legs ... and they
were beating on him," the co-conspirator told Roberts.
Schiller was tortured endlessly.
Sometimes, it was with fire.
"Doorbal would yell, 'Fire!
Fire!' but real sick," Schiller said. "And he would burn me, you know,
burn my skin ... and then he'd do this again ... and he was laughing so
hard he was crying."
Other times, they played Russian
roulette.
"They would place a gun to his
head, they would take a revolver and spin it and pull the trigger,"
Jimenez explained. "For the first couple weeks, he wasn't even allowed
to use the bathroom. He would have to urinate and defecate on himself."
But the worst was yet to come.
"At this point they told me,
'Well if you don't give us a list of everything you have ... we're gonna
bring your wife down here and rape her in front of you," said Schiller.
Schiller says he was allowed to
make one phone call. He called his family, telling his wife to take
their two young children and flee to Colombia. She chose not to call the
police.
Asked why she didn't she call
police, Schiller told Roberts, "I don't know. I think at that point, it
was prudent not to."
And for some inexplicable reason,
none of Schiller's employees, friends or extended family raised the
alarm. With his family safely out of the country, Schiller was still
suffering. Finally, the daily torture was too much. He gave up, giving
the gang everything.
"I signed. They told me my death
sentence," said Schiller.
"He was signing over everything,
including his life," Levine said. "It was $1.2 million in cash and
assets and a $2 million life insurance policy."
"And pretty soon they had
everything the man owned. They moved into his house, they changed the
pool contract to their name. They were living there ... and partying in
his home," Ferrer explained. "And they were taking some of the furniture
they liked and putting it into their own apartments, wearing his
jewelry, driving his Dodge Viper, and his Mercedes ... and just
basically living off his money. ... Well, at that point, you can't let
the guy live ... so they decide he's gotta go."
Having forced him to sign over
his assets, the Sun Gym gang, led by Danny Lugo, was partying in Marc
Schiller's house. In the Hollywood feature, "Pain and Gain", Mark
Wahlberg's character depicts the depravity.
"They were living in the house.
In my house," Schiller told Troy Roberts.
Despite his cooperation, Schiller
still remained chained like an animal in the Miami warehouse.
"Schiller was tied to a pipe in a
very small bathroom. That's where he spent the next 30 days, was
handcuffed to that pipe," former homicide Felix Jimenez explained.
The businessman and father was
living in kind of a hell associated with a Third World dungeon --
complete with racial slurs.
"They just told me, 'We got a
matzo ball' ..." said Schiller.
"What does that mean?" Roberts
asked.
"I guess they were referring to
the fact I was Jewish," he replied.
Schiller can't forget the sick
soundtrack that came with his daily beatings.
"They, I mean this whole time
they were laughing uncontrollably. To them it was just a fun
game," he said.
"While they were beating you?"
Roberts asked.
"Yeah."
"Did any of your captors show you
any kindness?"
"Yeah, the guy that was at night
there, because they stopped feeding me," Schiller explained. "I was
starved. I hadn't eaten for like three days. He brought me a can of a -
canned ravioli, which I had to eat with my hands."
That would be one of the last
meals the Sun Gym gang intended for Schiller to have as Lugo put his
final plan into action.
"They give him alcohol to drink.
Get him all drunk," said Judge Alex Ferrer.
"They plied you with alcohol for
three straight days" Roberts noted to Schiller.
"It was probably more than that,
it was probably like five days," he said.
"And then what did they do?"
"The last day? ... They set me in
a chair, and they give me this concoction, a drink," said Schiller.
"Liquor, tequila, vodka and gave
him sleeping pills. And eventually he passed out," said Jimenez.
Schiller was unconscious.
"They put him in his Toyota
4Runner, his SUV," said Ferrer.
"And they drove the car into a
light pole. Doorbal was driving," Jimenez explained. "... and then douse
the car with gasoline and set it on fire. And that was their attempt to
kill him. They backed out about a block away to watch the car as it was
engulfed in flames."
"The problem is, they don't
buckle him in," Ferrer explained. "The flames revive him enough that he
stumbles out of the car and towards the road."
The surprised Sun Gym gang moved
in to finish off Marc Schiller.
"... and they see this guy that
they just lit on fire standing by the side of the road and they yell,
'Run him over, run him over,'" said Ferrer.
"They drive forward and they try
to run him over, they missed. But then they were able to back over him
and then run over him again," said Jimenez.
"And they get back to their
place, and they go, 'You think we killed him?' They're looking at the
dent of the car, and they say, 'I don't know it's not a big dent, yeah
but we ran him over, and we backed over him, I mean he must be dead,'"
Ferrer continued.
Asked what he remembered next,
Schiller told Roberts, "Waking up in a hospital."
It would be months before
Schiller could grasp the full horror of how he ended up half dead at
Jackson Memorial, Miami's top trauma center.
"I was in a coma when they picked
me up," he told Roberts.
In the frenetic haze of the
intensive care unit -- burned and bruised, his pelvis broken -- Marc
Schiller tried to tell his story of abduction and torture to nurses,
doctors -- anyone who might listen.
"Yeah, I told 'em I was
kidnapped, and they go, 'No no, you were in a bad accident,'" he said.
"And I go, 'No, no, no, no. I was kidnapped. And they just blew it off."
"How many times did you insist
you had been kidnapped?" Roberts asked.
"About three and then I gave up,"
said Schiller.
"He's trying to convince the
nurse to give him a phone, because he says he was kidnapped. And she
just keeps going, 'No you weren't kidnapped, you were drunk, you hit a
pole," said Ferrer.
"I knew they weren't gonna do
anything,"said Schiller.
"Finally, she gives him the
phone. He calls his lawyer," said Ferrer.
From there, it took just moments
to figure out Marc Schiller needed a lot more than just a lawyer.
But even Ed Du Bois, with 50
years of experience as a private investigator, had never heard anything
quite like Schiller's story.
"The call was unusual because the
story was so bizarre," said Du Bois.
Du Bois met Schiller and believed
his story. Soon, both men realized.
Schiller had an even bigger
problem: Lugo and Delgado were intent on finishing the job.
"I was a sitting duck," said
Schiller.
"Did you fear that Delgado and
Lugo were going to come to hospital to finish the job?" Roberts asked.
"Yeah. And my sister was there
and my brother. And we were all in a panic," he said.
"And I said, 'The easy answer is
for you to get out of the hospital," said Du Bois.
"Why didn't either of you go to
the police at that point?" Roberts asked.
"Well ... we couldn't wait for
the police," Du Bois replied.
Schiller's sister ripped the
medical tubes from his arms.
"And the doctor said, 'You can't
move him. He's in critical condition,'" said Schiller.
Schiller's brother and sister
booked an air ambulance, grabbed their brother and bolted out of Miami,
heading north -- not a minute too soon.
"We left at 8 o'clock in the
morning. I guess they came at 10 to look for me, to kill us all, all
three of us," said Schiller.
"Delgado and Lugo?" Roberts
asked.
"Yeah, to the hospital," he
replied.
The now desperate Sun Gym gang
had tracked down their former captive.
"As they're walking the halls of
Jackson Memorial Hospital looking for him, he's on an air ambulance
flight to New York," said Ferrer.
A thousand miles from Miami, Marc
Schiller, now supported by his family, began to heal; his body and bones
fractured.
"First, I can't walk and second
of all, who knows how many of these people are out there," he said.
Schiller would reunite with his
family in Colombia. Weeks would pass, and, strangely, despite his
ordeal, Schiller did not report it to police.
"What person gets kidnapped, held
for a month, and when he finally gets free, leaves the country and
doesn't call the police for four months?" Ferrer wondered.
"I think what's difficult to
understand is why you did not go to the police sooner," Roberts
commented to Schiller.
"I did," he said.
But according to authorities, it
wasn't until April 1995, four months after his escape, that Schiller
contacted police.
"'They want you to come to Miami
to report it,'" Schiller said. "And I'm like, 'That's not happening.'
... who knows how many of these people are out there. ... I run into
them by accident, I'm dead."
"Marc Schiller was asked to come
and give testimony under oath four times ... and he stood up not only
the prosecutor, but the police, to give that testimony four times," said
prosecutor Gail Levine.
Prosecutor Levine would
eventually lead the investigation and try the case. She says Schiller
didn't come forward, because he had his own credibility issues due to
his alleged involvement in Medicare fraud.
"The victim comes from Colombia.
He has a lot of money, more money than I would imagine most CPAs in
Miami have," she explained.
"So after a while, you and Marc
decided to go to the police?" Roberts asked Du Bois.
"Yeah," he replied.
But according to Du Bois and
Schiller, when they finally did sit down with the cops...
"They've never listened at all,"
said Schiller.
"They never went out, never read
them their rights, they never asked them a question, they never even
said, 'Hello, here I am. We're breathin' down your neck,'" said Du Bois.
"They went to Metro-Dade's top
unit that handles just crimes of this nature --just the biggest crimes.
And they just didn't believe him," Ferrer explained.
It had been five months since
Marc Schiller's ordeal. The muscle-headed gang had trashed his home and
burned through his money. They were now hungry for another score.
"If the police had listened to
him and investigated, Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton would probably be
alive today," said Ferrer.
By May of 1995, five months after
his harrowing escape, the Sun Gym gang had burned through all of Marc
Schiller's money.
"They'd been partying and going
to strip clubs, and dropping thousands of dollars on strippers and it
was all his money," said Judge Alex Ferrer.
With Schiller's fortune spent,
the gang targeted their next victims: Frank Griga and his beautiful
girlfriend, Krisztina Furton.
"There was never any pretense.
They knew they were gonna kill them from the outset," said Ferrer.
The millionaire had it all.
"Lugo and Doorbal, on the other
hand, they wanted to live that life," Ferrer continued.
The life Frank Griga had built on
those dial tones of his sex phone empire.
"It made me very proud that my
kid brother made it so big," Zsuzsanna Griga said.
"You know we were very poor when
we were young..." she continued.
"It's a true rags-to-riches
story," said Roberts.
"Yes it is," Griga replied.
Zsuzsanna had seen her brother's
love for the glittery side of the American dream.
"Money was there for him to make
other people happy and to play, to buy toys," she said.
"His wealth did afford him
certain luxury items," Roberts noted.
"Oh he loved cars, yes, he loved
cars," Griga said.
Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini
was legendary. It was that car that caught the eye of Adrian Doorbal.
He'd been told about it by a woman who once dated Frank Griga.
"And Doorbal's face lights up and
says, 'Who has the yellow Lambo?' And she says, 'Oh, don't you know?
That's my friend Frank. He's my old boyfriend," Levine explained. "And
he says, 'How would I know him?' 'Oh, he comes into this dance club
Solid Gold all the time. Don't you know him?' Doorbal wasn't that
stupid. Bingo. We got our next victim."
Doorbal and Lugo approached Frank
Griga with a phony, made-up business scheme and a meeting was set at the
Solid Gold strip club.
"And they told him that they were
investors and that they had a way to make 20-percent return on the
dollar," said Levine.
But the real plan mirrored the
violent abduction of Marc Schiller: kidnap and torture Frank Griga until
he signed over every nickel he had and revealed to the gang where his
assets were kept.
"They also needed Krisztina,"
said Levine.
Asked why, she told Roberts,
"They needed Krisztina because if Frank was missing, Krisztina was going
to go to the police, 'cause why wouldn't she go to the police? Frank was
completely legal."
Lugo and Doorbal, posing as
businessmen, lured Frank and Krisztina back to Doorbal's apartment.
Within minutes, Doorbal was strangling Frank in the bedroom.
"Doorbal, not knowing his own
steroid strength, either broke his neck or suffocated him," said Levine.
And she screams, and Danny
tackles her and injects her with horse tranquilizer, which they had
basically bought to tranquilize the two of them," said Ferrer.
"And it killed her?" Roberts
asked Levine.
"Not initially," she replied.
"They had a dead person and
another one, another person near death," said Garafalo.
Krisztina Furton, 23, who loved
animals, swimming and had dreams of being a professional diver, was now
shot full of horse tranquilizer. Then, Lugo demanded she give up the
access code numbers to Frank Griga's house.
"And Doorbal goes and speaks to
her and he comes back and says, his exact words were, 'The bitch is
cold.' They had injected her with enough horse tranquiller to kill four
1,000-pound horses. And now they're both dead -- Frank Griga and
Krisztina Furton. And these two guys don't have a dime," Ferrer
explained.
Asked what did they do with the
bodies, Levine told Roberts, "Well, they got creative."
With the help of Jorge Delgado,
Doorbal and Lugo stuffed the bodies of Frank Griga into a couch and
Krisztina Furton into a large cardboard box.
"So here you have these two
muscular guys, and on a Saturday morning, during the middle of the day,
it looks like they're moving. And they're moving boxes and they're
moving a couch. And what they contain are two bodies," said Jimenez.
They took the bodies to an empty
warehouse. The horror was just beginning.
"So they went to Home Depot and
bought a chain saw. They come back and they're gonna use this to
dismember the bodies. But the chain saw doesn't have enough power. So
these geniuses take this chainsaw back to Home Depot and return it,"
said Ferrer.
"You're kidding me," said
Roberts.
"... and they brought that back
and they end up buying an electric chainsaw," said Garafalo.
"It boggles the mind that they
would return a chain saw that they were going to use to dismember these
people," Roberts told the detectives.
"There's a lot of things about
this case that boggle the mind," said Jimenez.
But the second chain saw jammed
in Krisztina Furton's beautiful, thick hair. That's when Doorbal and
Lugo reached for an ax.
"And they started chopping the
body parts. For hours," said Levine.
"And they disposed of the torsos
in one part of the county in oil drums," said Ferrer.
"And they left those hands, heads
and feet in buckets at the 31 mile marker," Levine continued.
"... in the Everglades, on the
Alligator Alley that goes from Ft. Lauderdale to Naples," said Ferrer.
"I have never passed that mile
marker without saying a little prayer for Frank and Krisztina," said
Levine.
Another gang member would dump
Frank Griga's yellow Lamborghini on the side of the road, in the swampy
Florida Everglades.
Police didn't need a GPS. The map
was clear and it led straight to the Sun Gym gang.
"And I remember saying, 'We don't
have a missing persons, we have a very major homicide,'" said Levine.
Soon, Frank's big sister was on a
flight to Miami.
"The bodies were found that day,"
Zsuzsanna Griga told Roberts of the day she arrived. "Sergeant Jimenez
and Sgt. Garafalo ... came and picked me up at the airport and they
explained that they just had, you know, they had the bodies. Yes." Griga
paused before continuing. "Sorry. It's still very hard after 17 years."
As investigators put the pieces
together, Marc Schiller's kidnap story echoed like thunder.
"And they said, 'I think we got
another case just like yours ... could you come down to Miami?' I said,
'Yeah, yeah. I'll come to Miami,'" said Schiller.
The Sun Gym gang left a massive,
bloody trail of evidence. The last of the muscle heads would be busted
when Danny Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina Petrescu, told police that Lugo was
hiding out in the Bahamas.
The crimes and the trial would
captivate and horrify all of south Florida.
"It was disturbing on every
level. And I've tried serial killers," Ferrer said. "But this case
really got to me."
Almost four years after he was
left for dead, Marc Schiller faced off again against the Sun Gym gang.
In February 1998, almost three
years after the gruesome murders of Frank Griga and Krisztina Furton,
Danny Lugo and Adrian Doorbal were set to go on trial.
The case would be career defining
for prosecutor Gail Levine.
"It was so encompassing ... from
the day I got the call, from the day I started investigating it, from
the day I met the victim's family, from the day I met everybody
involved, from the relationship that I developed with police in
investigating the case," she explained.
Lugo's girlfriend, Sabina
Petrescu, was granted immunity in exchange for her testimony. She knew
all the gang's secrets and details of their plots, though she believed
they were undercover CIA agents.
"Sabina Petrescu's probably one
of the most beautiful women I've ever seen in my life," Levine said,
"but she was also one of the most naive women I have ever met in my
life. She was in love with Danny Lugo and she thought he was her CIA
agent."
With 100 witnesses and thousands
of pieces of evidence, the case would drag on for 10 weeks, overseen by
Katherine Fernandez Rundle, the State Attorney for Miami-Dade County.
"... when you have a case that's
that grotesque and you know people suffered ... what do we do to bring
justice to the victims of this case, either in their name or for their
surviving members ," said Rundle.
Justice was what Marc Schiller
got this time. He was in control as the prosecution's star witness.
"Walking in and seeing Lugo and
Doorbal ... I realized that -- I was in the driver's seat ... because
they never imagined that I'd be sitting there accusing them," said
Schiller.
The prosecution rested. Lugo and
Doorbal's attorneys chose not to put on a case.
"There's sometimes when, as a
defense lawyer, you don't have anything to go on. You just don't. You
can't claim misidentification. You can't claim anything," said Ferrer.
"What was the defense strategy?"
Roberts asked Levine.
"Save their lives," she replied.
Jurors wasted little time making
their decision. Within hours, they reached their verdict: Daniel Lugo
was found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of Krisztina
Furton and Frank Griga.
Doorbal was also found guilty and
both men were sentenced to death.
"He was treated like a prisoner
of war or actually worse. The torture and the beatings and the -- the
attempts to kill him and all of that. For some reason, it just felt to
me that that should be taken into consideration," said Ferrer.
Incredibly, one of Schiller's
torturers, Jorge Delgado - the Sun Gym member who had first told Lugo
about Schiller and his millions - ended up helping the federal
government make their case.
In a plea deal, Schiller ended up
serving two years in federal prison and paying $137,000 in restitution.
"He felt betrayed," Roberts noted
to Levine.
"His jail sentence is what he
did, but the pain and suffering that he endured, that -- nobody deserves
that," she said. "Did Marc Schiller deserve to go to prison? I leave
that to the federal government. I wasn't involved in that at all."
Today, while Schiller refuses to
talk about the charges, he does say he lost everything -- his health,
his home, his millions. Even now, with a big Hollywood movie, he won't
get a dime.
"It's a comedy, which is
unfortunate, because there was nothing funny that happened to me," he
said. "These were inept, incompetent people, but they were at the same
time malicious and cold-blooded murderers."
Ultimately, the rest of the gang
went to prison, too. The co-conspirator was sentenced to two years
imprisonment for his involvement in Schiller's kidnapping and Jorge
Delgado got 15. In all, seven members of the gang would do time.
It's been 18 long years since the
gang tortured and killed their way through Miami.
Gail Levine has continued her
career at the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office. She's tried more than
80 cases.
Judge Alex Ferrer left the bench
in 2005, and continues to enjoy success with his syndicated television
show.
Marc Schiller has just released
his tell-all tale, "Pain and Gain - The Untold True Story".
Lugo and Doorbal remain on death
row.
Lugo and Doorbal have appealed
their convictions multiple times over the past 15 years.
Once their appeals have been
exhausted, Florida's governor will sign a death warrant and they will be
executed by lethal injection.
