Marc Wabafiyebazu, Canadian diplomat's son, pleads no contest to reduced Florida murder charges

The teenaged son of a Canadian diplomat pleaded no contest Friday to reduced charges of third-degree felony murder related to a double killing in Miami — even though he had no part in the gunplay that left his older brother dead.

In exchange for his plea, 15-year-old Marc Wabafiyebazu of Ottawa will have to serve six months in a boot camp starting next week, followed by 10 months of modified house arrest and a maximum eight years' probation.

If he completes the sentence without incident, the teen will have no criminal conviction registered against him.

"Marc has his future," his mother Roxanne Dubé, Canada's former consul general in Miami, told The Canadian Press. "He's going to be saved."

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Wabafiyebazu has been in custody since March 30, 2015, when he was arrested outside a Miami apartment in which his 18-year-old brother, Jean Wabafiyebazu, and another teen were shot dead.​

Prosecutors did not allege the younger sibling had any direct role in the bloodshed, apparently the result of his brother's
attempt to rob a drug dealer of 800 grams of marijuana. However, they maintained Wabafiyebazu had known of the scheme when they drove in their mom's car to what police called the "drug den."

As a result, under Florida's felony law, they charged the teen as an adult with multiple offences, including felony first-degree murder, which carries a minimum 40 years in prison.

'Paying the price'

Under the plea deal approved by the state attorney, however, the prosecution made a rare concession to reduce the two main charges he faced to third-degree murder. Wabafiyebazu also pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of aggravated battery and attempted armed robbery.

"Essentially, he is paying the price for Jean," Dubé said. "He is also pleading to the murder of his own brother."

While a "no contest" plea has the same basic effect as a guilty plea, the accused doesn't actually admit guilt.

Wabafiyebazu's two co-accused, including the drug dealer who fled the scene with his drugs and a handgun, were granted bail soon after also being charged with lesser felony-murder crimes. 

Last fall, both co-accused pleaded guilty to minor drug charges and were sentenced to boot camp, house arrest and probation which, if successfully completed, would also mean no conviction.

Much of the prosecution's case against Wabafiyebazu rested on a spontaneous confession a rookie police officer said the youth had made from the back seat of a cruiser as he was taken to a detention facility. Police had denied his requests to call his mother and did not warn him that anything he said could be used against him.

No previous trouble with law

"This is one of the most serious cases I've had in this division in a long time," Circuit Court Judge Teresa Pooler said in
approving the plea deal.

Dubé stepped down last August as consul general, a post she had taken up less than two months before the deadly encounter.

In a recent interview with The Canadian Press, she talked extensively of the struggle to cope with the death of her older son while trying to support his devastated younger brother, who found himself behind bars and facing the prospect of a lengthy prison term.

The teen, whom she described as the son every mother would want, had never been in trouble with the law.​