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Brought To A Boil: 2 Men Accused Of Cooking Coke Dealer

(AP Photo/Erin Prawoko)
Relatives of Angel Ramirez sit in district court Monday, during the arraignment of his alleged killers, Daniel Bradley and Paul Moccia.

BOSTON (CBS/AP) According to prosecutors, a high school football coach and another man cooked up a plan to get out of paying their coke dealer by actually cooking the dealer.

Daniel Bradley, 47, of Westwood, Massachusetts, and Paul Moccia, 48, of Dedham, pleaded not guilty Monday in Wrentham District Court to murder charges in the death of Angel Antonio Ramirez, a construction worker from Guatemala who lived in Framingham.

Moccia met Ramirez near the concrete company that Bradley co-owns and shot him in the back with a .357-caliber pistol, said Norfolk Assistant District Attorney Robert Nelson.

Moccia owed Ramirez $70,000 from drug deals and decided to kill him instead of paying up, authorities said.

Bradley then dismembered the man's remains and then tried to get rid of the evidence once and for all, Nelson said.

"It was cooked," he said.

(AP Photo/Erin Prawoko)
Daniel Bradley, left, and Paul Moccia, right, stand in district court Monday, June 8, 2009, in Wrentham, Mass.

Prosecutors didn't say how they arrived at their theory, or how the body was cooked or disposed of.

Defense attorneys said their clients are innocent and noted prosecutors haven't produced a body.

Prosecutors believe forensic evidence from the concrete factory will bolster their case against the suspects, Nelson said.

Investigators found blood spots inside the concrete business, RJ Bradley Co. Inc., Nelson said, as well as on a pair of Bradley's boots at his Westwood home.

Bradley is an assistant football coach at Xaverian Brothers High School; the school didn't return a message left after business hours Monday.

Moccia is a longtime Mass Pike toll collector. Colin Durrant, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Transportation, said Monday that Moccia has been suspended without pay and a disciplinary hearing has been scheduled.

Both men were ordered held without bail in Wrentham District Court. A pretrial hearing has been scheduled for July 7.

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