{"id":159201,"date":"2026-02-18T01:48:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159201\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T01:48:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T01:48:23","slug":"bombshell-development-has-delayed-university-of-miami-hurricanes-football-players-murder-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/159201\/","title":{"rendered":"Bombshell development has delayed University of Miami Hurricanes football player’s murder trial"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bombshell development has caused a delay in the start of a trial for former University of Miami Hurricanes football player Rashaun Jones.<\/a><\/p>\n

Jones is charged with second-degree murder<\/a> for the shooting death of his teammate Bryan Pata back in 2006.<\/p>\n

The state and defense legal teams were supposed to present their opening statements on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

Instead, the judge dismissed the jurors for the day after Jones’ attorney says ICE told them Pata’s killer is actually a Haitian hitman.<\/p>\n

Bryan Pata’s mother sat behind prosecutors, crying as the trial she’d waited nearly two decades for was set to get underway, but there was a delay.<\/p>\n

“There’s specific language in that confession that says I just killed that kid from the University of Miami. So now we have a specific statement, linking that confession to the murder of Bryan Pata,” said Christian Maroni, Rashaun Jones’ attorney. <\/p>\n

40-year-old Jones sat in a beige sweater as his defense team delayed his trial for the 2006 murder.<\/p>\n

According to the defense, late Friday, an ICE agent confirmed that a confidential informant told them a Haitian hitman was responsible for Pata’s murder, arguing the lack of investigation.<\/p>\n

“I don’t know how we could effectively cross-examine on failure to investigate leads if we can’t get into some details about those leads,” said Maroni. <\/p>\n

The prosecution team argued it should not be allowed into the courtroom because it is hearsay.<\/p>\n

“Here, as we’ve gone over at nauseam. There are no other supporting documents. There are no other witnesses that can testify to this information,” said Cristina Diamond, prosecutor. <\/p>\n

After taking two breaks for the judge to review documents and the defense team to depose the ICE special agent who has the information.<\/p>\n

The judge says she is not sold on allowing the information because there is truly no one to take the stand and clarify this accusation.<\/p>\n

“Unless you all have direct evidence that I can use in this case, that I can agree to, and I can allow it to be admissible. This is all based on speculation. The entire thing,” said the Miami-Dade judge. <\/p>\n

Right as the judge was set to make a final decision on whether to allow this evidence into the trial, the defense team got an email that they would be allowed to depose the ICE agent again.<\/p>\n

The legal teams re-entered the courtroom after deposing the ice agent for a second time. <\/p>\n

The ice agent went into more detail about the new allegation regarding a hitman being responsible for Pata’s murder. <\/p>\n

“Specifically he said the confidential informant, that the confidential informant the guy told him he was doing voodoo at the gravesite,” said Jones’ attorney. <\/p>\n

Originally, the legal teams were only allowed to ask the ICE agent six questions regarding the new revelation that the murderer was allegedly a Haitian hitman.<\/p>\n

The agent confirmed the confidential informant told him the person killed was UM football player Bryan Pata.<\/p>\n

The newly surfaced hitman did voodoo at the grave site, according to the ICE agent’s testimony.<\/p>\n

“The special agent was able to find items related to this kind of stuff. Where the confidential informant is based on the information,” said Maroni. <\/p>\n

“There were well-meaning members of the community doing these types of rituals, hoping Bryan would speak through the grave site, so the police would get a tip. For the police to get a break,” said the prosecutor. <\/p>\n

The judge said the court will resume 1030 Wednesday morning with both legal teams expected to present their opening statements.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bombshell development has caused a delay in the start of a trial for former University of Miami…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159202,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[57,123,125,124,14313,9724],"class_list":{"0":"post-159201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-miami","10":"tag-miami-headlines","11":"tag-miami-news","12":"tag-murder-trial","13":"tag-university-of-miami"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}