A man cleared in the fatal shooting of a Tampa DJ at an Ybor City intersection under Florida’s stand your ground law was released from jail Wednesday after pleading guilty in an unrelated battery case and receiving a jail sentence of time served.
Joel Moreno-Cobo was released from Hillsborough’s Falkenburg Road Jail roughly 11 months after he was first arrested in the shooting of Dedrick Sykes, who worked in the Tampa Bay area as DJ ShyGuy.
A judge in August dismissed the second-degree murder charge against Moreno-Cobo in the Sykes shooting, finding there was not enough evidence to refute Moreno-Cobo’s claim that he fired in self-defense. But Moreno-Cobo still faced a charge of aggravated battery with the discharge of a firearm ― which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years ― in connection to an unrelated incident in Ybor City. A judge had ordered him to remain in jail until that case was resolved.
That resolution came Tuesday, when the 32-year-old Tampa web designer pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of felony battery. Judge Lindsay M. Alvarez sentenced Moreno-Cobo to 120 days in jail and, as part of the deal with prosecutors, agreed for the sentence to be time served.
The maximum prison sentence for that crime is five years.
A day before Tuesday’s hearing, the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office filed the amended lesser charge. The case had at least one hurdle for prosecutors: Investigators never found the victim, who was believed to be a homeless man.
“Despite law enforcement’s efforts, the victim could not be located, which would have presented a significant challenge at trial,” Erin Maloney, a spokesperson for the Hillsborough State Attorney’s Office, said Wednesday in an email to the Tampa Bay Times. “This plea agreement ensures the defendant is now a convicted felon and is now legally prohibited from possessing a firearm.”
Moreno-Cobo’s attorney, Jorge Chalela, declined to comment.
Tampa police arrested Moreno-Cobo on a second-degree murder charge on Nov. 20, 2025, six days after he fatally shot Sykes. The next day, prosecutors charged Moreno-Cobo with aggravated battery with the discharge of a firearm in connection with the other incident nine months earlier.
About 3:50 a.m. on Feb. 20, 2025, Moreno-Cobo was sitting in a Mercedes C63 parked in the 1500 block of Seventh Avenue when an unidentified man approached on the sidewalk across the street, according to a motion prosecutors filed to keep Moreno-Cobo in jail pending the outcome of the case.
Surveillance video shows the man “pumping his fists in the air, picking items up and tossing them around while walking,” the motion states. The man “appeared as if he was possibly experiencing some type of mental health episode.”
As the man approached the front of Bradley’s on 7th, a nightclub at 1510 E. Seventh Ave., he picked up an unidentified object and threw it toward the street. Moreno-Cobo got out of the Mercedes and appeared to “engage in a verbal confrontation” with the man. Two seconds after getting out of the car, according to the motion, Moreno-Cobo walked quickly across Seventh with a gun in his right hand.
Video shows Moreno-Cobo running toward the man and hitting him in the upper body with the gun, causing the man to fall, the motion states. While the man was on the ground, Moreno-Cobo hit him about 14 more times in the upper body and then walked back to his car.
As the man tried to get up and walk away, Moreno-Cobo ran back toward him, catching up to him as a vehicle passed. Moreno-Cobo waited for the vehicle to pass, then hit him with the gun again, causing the man to fall again, according to the motion. While the man was on the ground, Moreno-Cobo hit him again, and the gun discharged once. The bullet struck the glass front door of Bradley’s on 7th, causing it to shatter.
Police learned of the incident when Bradley’s staff reported the damaged door later that morning, and investigators collected surveillance video from the area. They were able to identify Moreno-Cobo and interview him.
Moreno-Cobo told police that “he believed the victim was attacking him and his vehicle by striking it with the unknown object,” the motion states. “The defendant stated the victim told him he was on drugs, so he was not comfortable confronting him without a weapon, so he had his firearm in his hand. The defendant stated that he believed the victim was trying to strike him but was not able to, which is why he intentionally struck the victim with the firearm.”
Moreno-Cobo said he never put his finger on the trigger of his gun and believed it malfunctioned when it discharged.
Prosecutors have previously said that the details of the Sykes case factored into their decision to file the charge.
Dedrick “ShyGuy” Sykes, a Tampa Bay area DJ who was fatally shot in Ybor City last November, is pictured in a screenshot of a public post on his Facebook page.
Maloney, the state attorney’s office spokesperson, told the Times in December that Tampa police initially sent the case to prosecutors as a culpable negligence charge. Prosecutors opted not to pursue the charge at the time, Maloney said, but police and prosecutors reviewed the case again “given the violent murder perpetrated by this defendant on Nov. 14,” referring to the Sykes case.
In August, Judge Lyann Goudie presided over a stand your ground hearing in Moreno-Cobo’s case. In a ruling released Aug. 27 dismissing the case, Goudie wrote that Sykes, 41, was the “initial aggressor” when the two men, who didn’t know each other, crossed paths at the intersection of East Fifth Avenue and North 22nd Street.
They exchanged words, and Sykes got out of his Jeep. Moreno-Cobo said during the hearing that Sykes appeared angry and looked like he “was kind of lunging.” Moreno-Cobo, who was behind the wheel of a BMW, said he feared for his safety and that of his girlfriend and 9-year-old daughter, who were also in the car.
Prosecutors “failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence” that Moreno-Cobo “was not reasonable in his belief that the force he used was necessary in order to defend himself,” Goudie wrote.