Feds: "Joe Cool" Suspect Admitted Killings

DECEMBER 20--A 24-year-old prison informant has told federal investigators that a suspect in the brutal September murder of four people on a charter boat admitted his role in the slayings, according to a court filing unsealed yesterday.

The snitch, The Smoking Gun has learned, is Antwan Hall, a Miami street thug who is serving 30 months for a May 2007 weapons conviction. Hall, seen in his mug shot, was arrested carrying a Glock pistol (and 15 rounds of ammo) after being shot by a rival toting an AK-47 assault rifle.

Originally charged by Florida state authorities, Hall, a street-level drug dealer, was subsequently indicted on a federal charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm (his rap sheet includes priors for burglary and auto theft, and nearly four years in the Florida prison system).

According to the new federal filing, an excerpt of which you'll find here, Hall contends that Guillermo Zarabozo, a suspect in the slaughter on the 'Joe Cool' charter, admitted his role in the murders during jailhouse conversations at the Federal Detention Center in Miami. Hall is not named in the document, only referred to as 'CS1,' or Confidential Source 1.

Hall told investigators that he and Zarabozo were housed in adjoining cells in the prison's Special Housing Unit. During those talks, Hall reported, Zarabozo described how he and Kirby Logan Archer slaughtered the four 'Joe Cool' victims.

While declining to discuss his client's involvement in the 'Joe Cool' probe, Hall's lawyer, Charles Stella, told TSG that Hall decided to leave the 'thug life' behind after marrying and having a child. Stella added that Hall was hit with the federal gun rap (which carries stiffer penalties than a similar state charge) because investigators believed he had 'valuable information' on 'very dangerous' street hoods and wanted to pressure him to cooperate. (4 pages)