Kill Gus Boulis's Killer?

It was a cool, dark evening, and a half-moon was rising as they slid the body into the inky water. Brandreth said the alligators would eat the body. "I was hoping he was right," Lehmann says in the deposition. "I'm from New Jersey. I don't know about this place. To me, I think alligators are everywhere in the Everglades, just walking around."

But, as with the story of the Boulis killing, there are problems with Lehmann's version of events. He claims Brandreth shot Citranglo four times in the back and the blood splattered everywhere. However, the Miami-Dade Medical Examiner's Office concluded Citranglo was shot only once, at close range in the chest — which would mean there was likely little bleeding.

And Hbaiu and Keneuker contradict each other on the number of shots, the purpose of the meeting with Citranglo, and who wanted him beaten.

Moreover, Brandreth denies pulling the trigger. On the day of the murder, he says, he was laying stepping stones in his dad's garden in Weston. (His father cannot corroborate the story because, conveniently, he died in 2005.) A few days later, on January 9 or 10, Brandreth recalls, he received a call from a friend named Eva while he was shopping at Home Depot. "They found Steve," she allegedly said.

"Hey, where is he?" Brandreth recalls asking.

"In the Everglades."

"What the fuck is he doing there?"

"You really don't know, do you?"

The murder, it seems, was all part of doing business. In May 2002, Lehmann ordered Brandreth to go to Tijuana, where he was to buy 1,350 vials of ketamine for $10 each. They'd be labeled as nutritional supplements, shipped to Miami or New York, and sold for $60 apiece. Lehmann's cover was a legitimate business, a vitamin and health-goods store on South Dixie Highway in Coral Gables called Super Nutrition, federal agents say.

Lehmann had moved to a white stucco mansion with thick foliage and an iron gate on Pine Tree Drive near the LaGorce Country Club in Miami Beach. Brandreth sometimes crashed there. He fondly recalls they often invited strippers over to get naked in the pool — and kept a pair of clippers handy in case anyone needed a last-minute pubic-hair trim. There were always eight or ten swank rides in the driveway: Corvettes, Range Rovers, Jaguars. "I liked Tom's lifestyle," Brandreth says. "He was out every night with Benzes, girls. He made a lot of money."

Things got ugly, though, in June, when Hbaiu was arrested in Swatara Township, Pennsylvania, for stealing a camera. Soon local cops discovered he had been convicted of federal drug trafficking, had been indicted in both California and New York after agents found ketamine and guns in his Columbia dorm room, and was on probation. When questioned, Hbaiu started singing about Citranglo's murder. (He would later be sentenced to two years in prison for the trafficking and other charges.)

Also in June, agents who were wiretapping Lehmann's phone conversations and culling the trash seized a ketamine shipment in Miami. In September, they raided the Pine Tree Drive mansion and found 200 vials of ketamine, eight stolen vehicles worth $450,000, two dozen credit cards, and seven firearms, including two AK-47 assault rifles. Says DEA Special Agent Joe Kilmer: "As the agents continued to investigate, it just started to snowball."

On October 2, 2002, federal prosecutors charged Brandreth, Lehmann, and six others with smuggling, distribution of ketamine, and gun charges. At first they all pleaded guilty on the drug and gun charges, and Lehmann received a five-year sentence. But in summer 2004, before a judge could decide Brandreth's penalty, Brandreth changed his mind and demanded a trial. The guns, he said, weren't his.

The testimony, which began in October 2004, lasted about two weeks. A highlight was the appearance of an up-and-coming DEA agent named Kevin Bliss. Though Bliss said the guns were in a room in Lehmann's house where Brandreth occasionally stayed, U.S. District Judge Adalberto Jordan chastised the agent for misleading jurors and erasing crime scene photos. Ultimately, though, the jury convicted Brandreth.

The three-month sentencing was even more interesting. Prosecutors claimed Brandreth had intimidated witnesses and even threatened to kill assistant U.S. Attorney Ben Greenberg. One inmate said Brandreth had grumbled about wanting to do away with Agent Bliss. Another claimed Brandreth was a stand-up guy. Still a third, Roberto Casanovas, called Brandreth a blowhard. "Paulie brags about everything, about a cup of soup; he'll brag about a cup of coffee."

In September 2005, Judge Jordan handed down a 20-year prison sentence, and the next day a state grand jury indicted Brandreth for Citranglo's murder. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.

Had he simply cooperated with police, maybe he wouldn't be facing a lethal injection, comments acquaintance Arlene Ellis. "He's stubborn," she says. "I think that's gotten him into quite a bit of trouble. I don't believe that about the murder. I'm shocked that it's gone this far."