A Florida woman allegedly used coronavirus relief funds from the Paycheck Protection Program to hire a hitman accused of killing a Transportation Security Administration officer outside Miami last year, according to newly unsealed court documents obtained by local media.
Jasmine D. Martinez, 33, is in custody in St. Lucie County on charges of first-degree murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder, jail records show. She’s expected to be transferred to Miami-Dade custody.
Javon Carter and Romiel Robinson are already jailed there on a slew of related charges.
Charges against Carter, an ex-con and the alleged shooter, include first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and unlawful possession of a firearm by a violent career criminal.
Robinson was already in custody on other charges, including resisting arrest, burglary, carrying a firearm without a serial number, armed robbery, drug trafficking and many more.
All three are being held without bond, jail records show.
Martinez is accused of collecting $15,000 in PPP money, most of which went toward hiring Carter to allegedly gun down Le’Shonte Jones, 24, in front of her 3-year-old on May 3, according to the Miami Herald, which obtained court records containing the allegations.
After Martinez collected the coronavirus-relief money, Robinson allegedly negotiated a $10,000 fee for Carter using coded language, according to NBC 6 Miami, which also obtained the warrant.
After the shooting, the documents allege that Carter collected his money, posed with it in a selfie video and said, “Just another day at the office.”
The warrant had been sealed since earlier this month after police took Carter into custody but were still seeking Martinez, according to the paper.
Martinez has a 22-page rap sheet in Florida including convictions for domestic violence, theft and selling a firearm with an altered serial number, records show. Several of them involved Jones as a victim, including a pending robbery case, as well as assault charges that had been dropped.
Carter’s rap sheet is almost twice as long, and includes numerous felony convictions, including on firearms and weapons charges, burglaries and grand theft.
Robinson’s attorney told the Herald that his client had been in custody “well before” the slaying and that he “had nothing to do with it.”
But investigators, in the warrant, reportedly said they learned of the plot in part through recordings of prison phone calls, involving the three suspects another man, Kelly Nelson, who had dated Martinez and allegedly assaulted Jones in a courthouse parking lot in 2020.
thanks Joe B.
keep on giving $ to those good Citizen