A South Florida man was transferred to Miami-Dade County jail to face a murder charge in the death of his girlfriend, who was found dead on the side of I-95 in 2024.
A South Florida man accused of dumping his girlfriend along I-95 — leading to her being struck and killed by a car — is behind bars in Miami.
Lorent Pion, 30, was arrested Friday on a second-degree murder charge stemming from the 2024 death of 22-year-old Nahomi Valentina Cittadini.
READ MORE: Man beats girlfriend, drags her onto I-95 where she is hit and killed, cops say
Pion has pleaded not guilty and is being held at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.
Before he was transferred to Miami, Pion was in prison serving four years for several cases in Broward. Records show he was sentenced in those cases in February and March on charges of being a felon with a concealed weapon and fleeing law enforcement.
His release date is set for December 2028, but that will change if he is convicted in Cittadini’s murder.
Cittadini’s naked body was found in the grass along Interstate 95 near Ives Dairy Road in North Miami-Dade early the morning of Dec. 7, 2024. Pion, who was already under house arrest in a previous domestic violence case involving his girlfriend, dragged her into the path of oncoming traffic, according to police.
The Miami-Dade Medical Examiner’s Office later determined she had died from blunt force injuries after being struck by a car.
Lorent Pion Miami-Dade Corrections and Rehabilitation
According to a Florida Department of Transportation dispatcher monitoring highway cameras, Cittadini and Pion were seen fighting near a black SUV before Pion began beating her shortly after 6 a.m.
“One individual was on the ground fending off the attacker who was standing over her, throwing punches,” the dispatcher told investigators, according to Pion’s arrest warrant.
The body of 22-year-old Nahomi Valentina Cittadini was found on the side of I-95 on Dec. 7, 2024. Courtesy GoFundMe
As Cittadini tried to crawl to safety, authorities say Pion dragged her back onto the highway, directly into traffic. A passing sedan struck her, sending her onto the shoulder. Pion then dragged her body into a grassy area near the highway, the warrant says.
The driver of the car that struck Cittadini stopped a few hundred yards from where she was hit, according to investigators. It’s unclear from the report if the driver knew person was hit.
Surveillance footage shows Miami-Dade Fire Rescue stopping near Pion’s vehicle shortly after the attack. But the dispatcher told detectives he could not see what happened next due to glare from their emergency lights and the sun coming up, the report states.
Moments later, Pion drove away from the scene, followed by the driver who struck Cittadini, investigators say.
Firefighters and Florida Highway Patrol troopers who responded didn’t find the body and left around 6:30 a.m., according to the report.
At about 7 a.m., the FDOT dispatcher turned the camera back on the scene where Pion was seen attacking Cittadini, and what the footage showed was alarming.
“Out of curiosity, we turned the cameras back to the area and saw bloodstains on the road where she had been hit,” the dispatcher said. A blood trail led toward the grassy area where Pion had dragged her. Then, they saw what responders had missed — Cittadini’s body, face down and unclothed.
The dispatchers told FHP, which returned to the scene. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue and Miami-Dade police also returned and found Cittadini’s body.
Police found Pion later in the day by tracking his court-ordered ankle monitor. He was at an apartment complex in Miramar, according to the report. But when he saw officers, he drove off in his black BMW, leading police on a chase that spanned Miami-Dade and Broward counties, according to the report.
The pursuit ended when he crashed into several vehicles at the intersection of Red Road and Miramar Parkway. Pion then tried run away, but officers caught him, according to the report.
Police said they found bloodstains in the BMW, including the hood, side-step bar and rear wheel, and also more blood inside the car after getting a search warrant. That was consistent with the dispatcher saying he saw Pion try to put Cittadini in his SUV after she was hit by the car, the report states.
Miami-Dade detectives found out that Pion was arrested in August and charged with assaulting Cittadini in Miami Beach. A no-contact order was issued at the time, barring him from being near her.
However, a witness told police that on the night of her death, Cittadini had been seen leaving a strip club with Pion, according to the report. Pion was taken to Memorial West Hospital in Broward for evaluation following the crash. While there, police say he invoked his right to remain silent. But he reportedly made a voluntary statement to medical staff while being recorded on an officer’s body camera. The warrant did not indicate what he had said.
State prison records show Pion has a long criminal history going back to an armed carjacking conviction in 2016 in St. Johns County. He was convicted again on the same charge in the same county in Febuary 2018, and was sentenced to three years and six months in prison, corrections records show.
Miami Herald
Grethel covers courts and the criminal justice system for the Miami Herald. She graduated from the University of Florida (Go Gators!), speaks Spanish and Arabic and loves animals, traveling, basketball and good storytelling. Grethel also attends law school part time.