Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

A Trinidad and To­ba­go na­tion­al who made in­ter­na­tion­al head­lines af­ter be­ing con­vict­ed in the Unit­ed States for at­tempt­ing to arrange the mur­der of his for­mer girl­friend’s part­ner has died in Flori­da.

For­mer Ari­ma may­or Ghas­san Youseph says writer Ryan Hadeed died while in prison.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Youseph said he knew Hadeed from child­hood and re­called that he had al­ways ex­pe­ri­enced health is­sues while grow­ing up.

Hadeed, 47, who was al­so a for­mer news­pa­per colum­nist, died on Ju­ly 5 in Tavares, Flori­da, ac­cord­ing to an on­line obit­u­ary pub­lished by the Joseph A Scara­no Fu­ner­al Home.

Hadeed was sen­tenced to 84 months in prison af­ter plead­ing guilty in 2022 to us­ing the Unit­ed States Postal Ser­vice in a mur­der-for-hire plot in­volv­ing his for­mer girl­friend’s new part­ner. He had been sched­uled for re­lease in Jan­u­ary next year, Youseph said.

Youseph said Hadeed had been grant­ed per­mis­sion to be re­leased months ago af­ter his health de­te­ri­o­rat­ed. He was ex­pect­ed to be re­leased in­to the care of his par­ents; how­ev­er, their home had to be retro­fit­ted to ac­com­mo­date his med­ical needs.

Days be­fore Hadeed’s death, a so­cial work­er vis­it­ed his par­ents’ home for the fi­nal ap­proval be­fore his re­lease, Youseph said.

Ac­cord­ing to the obit­u­ary no­tice, fu­ner­al ser­vices were held on Mon­day at the Joseph A Scara­no Pines Memo­r­i­al Chapel in Pem­broke Pines, fol­lowed by a fu­ner­al mass at St John XXI­II Catholic Church in Mi­ra­mar, Flori­da.

Cre­ma­tion fol­lowed the ser­vice.

Hadeed, who lived in Pem­broke Pines in Broward Coun­ty, was ar­rest­ed in De­cem­ber 2021 fol­low­ing an un­der­cov­er law en­force­ment op­er­a­tion that in­ves­ti­ga­tors said un­cov­ered an al­leged plan to kill the new ro­man­tic part­ner of his for­mer girl­friend.

Fed­er­al pros­e­cu­tors said Hadeed mailed sev­er­al let­ters to a man he be­lieved was a con­tract killer, of­fer­ing US$10,000 to car­ry out the mur­der in Tam­pa.

The in­tend­ed re­cip­i­ent, how­ev­er, was co­op­er­at­ing with law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties and was work­ing as a con­fi­den­tial source for in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

In one of the let­ters, Hadeed al­leged­ly wrote: “I need some­one elim­i­nat­ed. I’ve been told you can arrange that. $10,000 all in cash and up­front.”

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said sub­se­quent cor­re­spon­dence in­clud­ed pho­tographs of the in­tend­ed vic­tim, his home ad­dress, work de­tails, trav­el rou­tines and a dead­line for the killing to be com­plet­ed be­fore the end of 2021. Pros­e­cu­tors said the fi­nal pack­age in­clud­ed US$10,000 in cash.

Au­thor­i­ties said Hadeed left the Unit­ed States on a one-way tick­et to Trinidad and To­ba­go on the same day the mon­ey and in­for­ma­tion pack­age was de­liv­ered.

Ad­di­tion­al ev­i­dence was al­leged­ly un­cov­ered when he re­turned to the Unit­ed States and un­der­went sec­ondary screen­ing by cus­toms of­fi­cials at Mi­a­mi In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port. He was ar­rest­ed on De­cem­ber 15, 2021.

In Ju­ly 2022, Hadeed plead­ed guilty in fed­er­al court to us­ing the mail to com­mit mur­der-for-hire, an of­fence that car­ried a max­i­mum sen­tence of ten years in prison and a US$250,000 fine.

Three months lat­er, US Dis­trict Judge William P Dim­itrouleas sen­tenced him to 84 months in fed­er­al prison. Be­fore his ar­rest, Hadeed was known in me­dia and lit­er­ary cir­cles as a colum­nist and writer.

The Na­tion­al Li­brary and In­for­ma­tion Sys­tem Au­thor­i­ty de­scribed him as an avid read­er and writer with aca­d­e­m­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tions in his­to­ry and clas­si­cal stud­ies.

His ar­rest and sub­se­quent con­vic­tion at­tract­ed sig­nif­i­cant at­ten­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

A post by Youseph showed a pic­ture of the fu­ner­al pro­gramme with the words: “Rest in peace Ryan.”