A judge refused to give a South Florida man bond on Monday after he was arrested a second time in connection to a triple murder.
Lineten Belizaire, 21, was arrested last week on three counts of second-degree murder, the Broward Sheriff's Office said.
"They are desperate, it's a political move, three people died, they need to arrest someone," said Belizaire’s attorney, Alexander Michaels.
He claims authorities are holding his client in jail illegally because the time limit to go to trial, 180 days from the arrest date, has expired.
The judge denied a motion to release Belizaire on his own recognizance.
Michaels has said his client is innocent, and he filed a notice that he wants the trial to begin as soon as possible.
"I'm very upset about it, I think it's a last effort by law enforcement to save a bad case that it never had in the first place," Michaels has said.
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Broward State Attorney's Office spokesman Ron Ishoy has said he was re-arrested based on new evidence but said he couldn't comment further because it's an ongoing case.
“When two young women and an innocent baby boy are gunned down, we have to find justice,” Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti said in a statement. “Since the morning of the murders, this case has been a priority of the Broward Sheriff’s Office and the homicide detectives who never stopped working on it.”
Belizaire was arrested in January on first-degree murder charges in the deaths of 6-month-old Carlton Stringer, Jr., his 25-year-old mother, Natasha Plummer, and 21-year-old roommate Octavia Barnett.
According to police, the bodies were found in an apartment at 2750 Somerset Drive on Jan. 14. An 11-month-old who is the child of Belizaire and Barnett was at the scene but was left unharmed, police said.
Belizaire was released in March after a grand jury decided not to indict him, recommending further investigation be done and additional evidence be presented.
"They got no new evidence, it's a bluff, OK, they got nothing, nothing from January when a grand jury failed to indict, to today, they got bubkus, nothing changed," Michaels said.
Weeks after his release, Belizaire was arrested again, this time on weapons charges. Miami-Dade Police said a black and silver semiautomatic Ruger 9mm firearm was discovered by an officer.
Earnest Baldwin, Belizair's uncle, also maintains his nephew's innocence. "I know he didn't do it, right now he's an innocent man being held in jail."
