Murderer Executed, Bleeding Hearts Livid

December 14, 2006

Yesterday, December 13, convicted murderer, Angel Nieves Diaz, met his fate in Stark, Florida for the slaying of Bar Manager Joseph Nagy during a robbery at the Velvet Swing Lounge on Dec. 29, 1979. Diaz wasn’t found or charged until 1984, convicted to death in 1985. Diaz robbed the lounge along with two accomplices, one who committed suicide and the other, already serving a life sentence for another murder, plea bargained for a second life sentence. Diaz, on the other hand, with a lengthy criminal record for other killings, escapes and robberies, pled innocent and went on trial.

In what I perceive as an attempt to turn his trial into a circus, he fired his court appointed attorney’s and requested to represent himself. The judge granted his request and is now under fire from death penalty opposing bleeding hearts for doing so.

The execution lasted some 34 minutes before Diaz was pronounced dead and this too is now being used as death penalty opponent’s latest cry. Prison officials said it was very unusual and assured onlookers he felt no pain, even though some said he grimaced as he died.

I wonder if any of the bleeding hearts ever think of the grimace Joseph Nagy must have had or the pain he obviously did feel, lying on his office floor dieing from gunshot wounds. I wonder if they ever think of how long he lay there, in very real pain, bleeding, until he died.

If you think I have no sympathy for Diaz, you are right, I don’t! Reading some of his criminal history, it was just a matter of time before the odds caught up with him and he met his righteous fate. From a Miami New Times article, A bad man, a flawed trial, and a needle, we read of Diaz;

“Born in Puerto Rico in 1951, Angel Diaz married while still in high school and dropped out during his third year. At age 17, he was arrested for heroin possession. At age 24, he shot and wounded a police officer during an armed robbery and was sentenced to five to eight years in prison. While incarcerated, Diaz participated in a drug rehabilitation program. In 1978 he fatally stabbed the program's director nineteen times and was convicted of his murder. Only a year into his fifteen-year sentence, he beat a corrections officer to near death, escaped prison, and fled to Miami. Two months later, he drew his gun in the Velvet Swing.”

“In February 1981, Miami cops nabbed Diaz for unrelated assault and firearms charges. He gave them an assumed name, Emilio Baez, and posted bond. Before police grasped his real identity — fugitive murderer from Puerto Rico — he jumped bail and fled north. Federal firearms agents caught up with him in Middletown, Connecticut, and arrested him on a warrant for illegal possession of a .25-caliber pistol. The feds soon discovered his history and indicted him on weapons charges in a circuit court in Hartford.”

“One week later, Diaz again escaped from jail.”


“In the Hartford Courant, authorities called it "the largest jailbreak in recent state history." Diaz and three inmates assaulted two guards and then used a floor buffer to break a window. Scaling a wall and a twelve-foot fence, they stole two cars and fled the scene. Caught three days later at the Home and Travel Motor Hotel in Meriden, Connecticut, Diaz spent just two years in jail before getting into trouble again. In July 1983 guards found a loaded .38-caliber Derringer under a mattress in his cell. This time they took him to Leavenworth.”

Before his 1985 trial, while incarcerated in Miami-Dade, he planned yet another escape, teaming up with other inmates to pay a corrupt corrections officer $10,000 for a MAC-10 machine gun.

Now, the bleeding hearts wanted to mention, as they always do, his childhood of abuse and mental problems, and his addiction to drugs from the age of 16. So what? Joseph Nagy is still dead. Lots of people have been addicted to drugs and cleaned their acts up without murdering people. Lots more have been abused as children, they didn’t murder people. Many more have mental problems. That doesn’t excuse cold blooded murder.

Diaz supporters also now claim that evidence was not raised that another of the tree shot Nagy. What they don’t say is that all three robbers were shooting in the club. Besides, even an accomplice is held accountable for murder during the commission of a felony.

Bleeding hearts also claim that the lengthy time it took for him to die and the “grimace” some say they saw on his face proves that lethal injection is cruel and unconstitutional. Excuse me, but wasn’t lethal injection the agreed upon method of execution after these same bleeding hearts demanded methods as gas chambers and electric chairs be banned due to their cruelty and unconstitutionality? Maybe they need to reactivate “old sparky” for these bleeding hearts?

Opponents keep claiming that the death penalty isn’t a deterrent. Considering that they drag executions out some 20 to 25 years, no it isn’t. A swifter execution might cure this problem, though. Endless appeals over any and every point they can muster just keeps costs rising and gives murderers hope they will beat the rap. Ones like Diaz, with a history of escapes, would just walk away, again, and be free to kill again. Once executed, though, none have ever killed again.

The governor of Puerto Rico was seeking clemency for Diaz. It did not come through and Diaz will never harm another human being. Had the Puerto Rican governor had the death penalty and applied it against Diaz long ago, Joseph Nagy might still be alive today.

Nicknamed “Daddy of Death,” in his Machete Men gang, if ever a criminal deserved the death penalty, it is Diaz.

Lew