Rickey Thompson is possibly facing a life sentence

Florida press on Tuesday reported that 43-year-old Bahamian Rickey Thompson is possibly facing a life sentence in connection with the deaths of three illegal immigrants who drowned in what Florida authorities say was a human smuggling attempt gone wrong.In addition to three counts of second-degree murder for the deaths of Nigel Warren, of Jamaica, and Haitian citizens Roselyne Lubin and Alnert Charles, Thompson faces 27 other criminal counts, including alien smuggling resulting in death and importing drugs into the United States.
The jury in that case was reportedly asked to consider, among supposed stacks of photographs and bags of narcotics, two exhibits attorneys said should settle the case: a picture of a dead man and a secretly recorded telephone conversation.
The picture allegedly shows the body Warren, one of three illegal immigrants whose 2006 drowning death could mean a life sentence for Thompson, a fisherman and allegedly "part-time smuggler." However, Thompson’s defense has posited that it was the man’s choice of dress that caused his death in the dark Jupiter Island surf."That man put on four shirts," said defense attorney David Patrick Rowe during his closing statements Monday. "He put on four pants. He put on construction boots, and he put on a jacket...and then he went into the water, not because someone pointed a gun at him — as they (prosecution) want you to believe — but because he wanted to come to America."Federal prosecutors reportedly said the telephone conversation proves Thompson captained yet another boat of illegal immigrants from The Bahamas to Jupiter Island four months earlier in August 2006, when two Haitians drowned and 12 kilos of cocaine washed ashore.During the conversation, a supposed drug mule-turned-informant tells Thompson a passenger from the August trip drowned, prosecutors said, and Thompson replies by warning the informant not to talk about the trip on the phone.Prosecutors apparently contended that the conversation connected two extremely similar smuggling trips, and supported witness testimony that Thompson used a gun to usher his passengers quickly from his 36-foot power boat and make them swim to shore — whether they knew how to swim or not.