3 charged in murder of Miami TSA agent
Miami Dade Florida February 22, 2022
Authorities have charged three people in the murder of Le’Shonte Jones, the 24-year-old Transportation Security Administration officer who was gunned down last year in front of her toddler in South Miami-Dade.
Arrested on Friday in Port St. Lucie was Jasmine Martinez, 33., who had been accused of a string of previous attacks on Jones.
Also arrested on Friday was Rumiel Robinson, 35, one of Martinez’s boyfriends.
The suspected shooter, Javon Carter, 29, was arrested last week in Miami-Dade.
All three have been charged with murder, and prosecutors expect to seek a grand jury indictment.
The arrests come nearly nine months after Jones was gunned down, after a shift at Miami International Airport, outside the Coral Bay Cove apartments in May 2021.
Her 3-year-old daughter was injured in the shooting.
The brazen attack sparked an exhaustive investigation that focused on Jones, who’d been a victim in a robbery case that involved Martinez.
“We never stop working to bring justice to the families of those that can no longer be heard,” Miami-Dade Police Director Alfredo Ramirez III wrote on Twitter. Arrest warrants detailing the evidence in the case were not immediately available.
But Martinez’s history with the victim Jones, as outlined in court records, suggests investigators believe it was a targeted killing.
She’d first been arrested on a battery charge in April 2016, accused of striking Jones, who was dating Martinez’s ex-boyfriend. The case wound up dropped.
Martinez was arrested again in 2018, for again beating up Jones.
After a court hearing for the case in February 2020, according to police reports, Jones was attacked in the parking lot of Miami’s criminal courthouse by Martinez’s boyfriend, Kelly Nelson.
He and another woman, Keyanu Queen, were arrested on allegations they attacked and robbed Jones. Both are awaiting trial.
Martinez was not charged in that attack.
According to a search warrant filed in Miami-Dade court last year, Jones reported to police that Martinez was harassing her to change her story. But Jones stood firm. In April 2021, Jones appeared for a deposition in the ongoing cases against Nelson and Queen.
One month later, Jones was murdered. Carter, who is the man believed seen on surveillance footage shooting Jones, had just gotten out of prison in December 2020. He’s been sentenced to eight years in prison for a string of burglaries in Miami-Dade.
His defense attorney could not be reached for comment. It was unclear if Robinson and Martinez had retained defense lawyers.
miamiherald.com
