A military veteran charged with fatally shooting five people and wounding six others at the Fort Lauderdale airport last year will plead guilty in exchange for receiving a life sentence under an agreement disclosed Tuesday in Miami federal court, the Miami Herald reports. Both prosecutors and defense attorneys said they reached the plea agreement after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions weighed in on the death penalty question in the murder case of 27-year-old Esteban Santiago. Sessions, who had final say, received input from both sides in South Florida as well as a panel of experts at the Justice Department.
Prosecutors said Sessions signed off on the plea agreement proposed by Santiago’s defense attorneys and that shooting victims’ family members were also on board with the proposed life sentence. “That was something taken into account in the attorney general’s decision” on whether to pursue the death penalty, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Ricardo Del Toro. Santiago is accused of flying on a one-way ticket from Alaska to Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport in January of last year to carry out the shootings of mostly elderly travelers — one of three mass firearm killings in Florida since 2016. Santiago, who suffers from mental health problems, is expected to change his plea to guilty on May 23 after undergoing a psychiatric competency evaluation ordered by U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom. She said she wanted to be certain Santiago has the “capacity” to make the decision to plead guilty.