FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Three men accused of ambushing, robbing and murdering rising rap star XXXTentacion in Deerfield Beach nearly five years ago were found guilty Monday by a Broward County jury.
The decision came more than a week after closing arguments were delivered and Broward Circuit Judge Michael Usan read his final instructions. Throughout that time, jurors offered little indication which way they were leaning, although the unusually lengthy deliberation showed that they struggled with their decision.
There was no reaction from the gallery, packed with supporters of the victim and the accused. A television camera recorded defendant Michael Boatwright blowing kisses in the direction of the victim’s family after the jury was escorted from the courtroom.
Last Thursday the jury asked to take Friday off and pick up Monday morning. Jurors were in the deliberation room less than an hour before they signaled they had reached their decision — each defendant was guilty of first-degree murder and armed robbery. The verdict affirmed the prosecution’s reliance on physical evidence, cellphone records, social media posts and the testimony of a former co-defendant who pleaded guilty and testified against his former friends.
The former co-defendant was Robert Allen, 27, who took the stand and admitted to plotting with Boatwright, Trayvon Newsome and Dedrick Williams to rent a car and use it to commit robberies, figuring confusion about ownership of the car would provide them enough cover to get away with the crime.
According to trial testimony, they spotted victim Jahseh Onfroy, the rapper who performed professionally as XXXTentacion, at Riva Motorsports in Deerfield Beach, carrying a Louis Vitton satchel in which he had stuffed $50,000 in cash he’d withdrawn from a nearby bank earlier in the day. Onfroy, 20, was ambushed as he tried to leave the motorcycle shop.
Surveillance footage showed two armed gunmen jumping out of a dark Dodge Journey and fighting with Onfroy for his bag. The passenger in Onfroy’s vehicle jumped out and fled from the passenger side, ignored by the assailants. Onfroy, in the driver’s seat of his BMW, is not seen in the video.
In closing arguments March 7 and 8, Assistant State Attorney Pascale Achille was careful not to place too much emphasis on Allen’s testimony. It corroborated the physical evidence, she said, but even without it, jurors were still presented with enough evidence to find the other defendants guilty.
Hours after the shooting, the defendants posted videos on social media flashing the money they’d just stolen, Achille said.
Lawyers for Boatwright, Newsome and Williams painted Allen as a liar selling out his friends to curry favor with the state and perhaps avoid a life sentence. Allen’s guilty plea was to second-degree murder, which carries a possible life sentence but allows the judge to show some leniency.
Allen may not be trustworthy, Achille said, but his testimony is. “Plots hatched in hell don’t have angels for witnesses,” she said, repeating an adage prosecutors sometimes cite when a defendant decides to testify for the prosecution.
Boatwright’s lawyer Joe Kimok, on the second day of closings, pointed to his client’s internet search history as proof of his innocence. Boatwright searched for the penalties for “accessory after the fact” to murder. “Why would he have cared about the penalty for being an accessory after the fact if he was the gunman?” Kimok asked the jury.
Jurors were kept unaware of the defense’s behind-the-scenes attempts to expand the list of suspects to include hip hop star Drake, who was identified as a nemesis of XXXTentacion in a cryptic Instagram post before Onfroy’s death. Onfroy distanced himself from the post, but defense lawyer Mauricio Padilla, representing Williams, made several attempts to get Drake to testify about any friction between him and XXXTentacion.
Padilla accused investigators of prematurely dismissing alternative suspects in their rush to judgment against the defendants.
Allen testified that he and the three defendants were the only conspirators in the robbery. Drake was not deposed.
Sentencing is set for April 6.
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