Danny Rocha spent day 3 of his testimony shifting in his chair. Defense attorneys forced him to read from a flurry of jailhouse letters he sent to friends asking them to implicate Allen Blackthorne in the killing of his ex-wife Sheila Bellush. Rocha wrote, "either Allen walks or I do."

          Federal prosecutors in Texas charge Blackthorne masterminded a murder-for-hire plot that led to the killing of Bellush. The mother of six, including quadruplets, was found shot and stabbed in her Sarasota home on Nov. 7, 1997.

          Wednesday, Lawyer Richard Lubin, the lead attorney in Blackthorne's six-member legal team, used Rocha's letters to discredit him and portray a pattern of repeated lies; more than two dozen of them at one point in Rocha's testimony. The inconsistencies between these letters and earlier statements and this week's testimony includes Blackthorne paying him cash twice for the Bellush beating, then later in a just a single payment, and now in checks as well as cash. One letter even asks a friend to call a press conference. Rocha wrote, "I would like you to come across a little bewidlered about the fact Allen hasn't been arrested." Rocha wanted the friend to claim he witnessed Blackthorne paying him cash in a golf course parking lot for a special favor called "black cow," the code name Rocha gave to the Bellush beating. Now Rocha testifies Blackthorne actually gave him the "hit" money in a private meeting. Rocha continues in the letter claiming he made an unusual discovery about his former golfing partner. "I found out he likes to wear women's clothes and dress up ... for sex."

          Lubin laid out Blackthorne's defense strategy when he accused Rocha of coming up with the plan by himself "to get in Allen's good graces ... and if he didn't gratuitously give you what you wanted, you would hustle him for what you wanted." Rocha responded saying "I don't see the hustle in murdering somebody for nothing ... A person I didn't even know. A person I couldn't even track down." For those in the audience it does seem like the one theory that requires a giant leap of faith and imagination. However, this week in court we have heard from man who wasted no time in eagerly detailing for the jury how he scammed the IRS, laundered money, looked for wealthy golfers to hustle and in the end thought nothing of going to great lengths to plan the Bellush beating in exchange for backing for a sports bar. Rocha is not what he seems. But the question remains is he lying now?

          For Rocha this is all about him even today. He admitted to Lubin that the deal with federal prosecutors in exchange for his testimony is "very important to him." The offer is the possibility of a move from the Florida State Prison system to a Federal facility in California closer to his family. But the part about his family still comes in second to saving his own skin. He didn't like the rough life inside the north Florida prison he lived in since spring of 1999. Rocha whined about "non-stop 24 hour harrassment of the prisoners" by the guards, and about "being spit on." "They have the idea you go to prison to be punished," Rocha said.

          Some observers in court speculated Danny Rocha let the prosecution down, others argued the prosecution knew Lubin would "eat him alive." But Rocha is the only link to Blackthorne. The government had to gamble on a gambler so they put him on early and got it over with.

          After nearly 15 hours on the stand Danny Rocha finally stepped down. The prosecution called its next witness whose first words were, "Wow this chair is warm."