Second man gets 50 years for role in hit attempt on famous Miami car designer to the stars
A judge on Tuesday sentenced the man convicted of driving the rental car in 2019 that was used to drop off the would-be assassin who shot and severely wounded Alex Vega, the famed Miami-based car designer to the stars, to 50 years in federal prison.
Although he didn’t fire the shots that left Vega clinging to life, federal agents say 46-year-old Jaime Serrano planned the trip from New York to South Florida to kill Vega and was more associated with the yet-to-be-revealed plotters and financiers of the murderous conspiracy.
The case has garnered national attention because both the victim and the father of the gunman are close friends with Grammy-winning singer Marc Anthony, who isn’t suspected in having anything to do with the crime. Though his name came up several times during the investigation and trial of Serrano.
Julian Jimenez, the 27-year-old son of Marcos Jimenez — Marc Anthony’s sound engineer and occasional property manager, according to court documents — was convicted in August shooting Vega three times as the Kendall businessman pulled his black Range Rover into his Kendale Lakes garage on the night of Aug. 27, 2019.
He fired a total of eight shots into the vehicle, according to the FBI.
Vega was returning home from work at his Kendall garage, The Auto Firm, which is frequented by many high-profile music and sports celebrities.
Jimenez pleaded guilty to the charges, rather than go to trial. Judge Roy Altman, taking into account Jimenez didn’t put the government and Vega through a trial, sentenced him to 35 years in prison Nov. 1, rather than giving him 45 years, as originally intended.
Jimenez’s accomplice, Serrano, did in fact opt to go to trial, resulting in a 12-member jury conviction in August on interstate stalking, interstate stalking that resulted in serious bodily injury and conspiracy to use a firearm during a violent crime.
The jury determined Serrano was not the shooter, but played an important part in planning the operation — from buying the airline tickets from New York to Miami, to renting cars while in Florida, and from obtaining the .40 caliber handgun Jimenez used to shoot Vega.
Serrano didn’t pull the trigger, but during the sentencing hearing Tuesday in downtown Miami, Altman repeatedly referred to him as “the architect” of the plot to murder Vega. Altman also said Serrano was more “connected to the people who wanted Mr. Vega dead.”
Neither Serrano nor Julian Jimenez have ever given up who commissioned the hit on Vega, who became good friends with Marc Anthony in recent years after renovating several of the music star’s cars.
Serrano is also in the music business, representing and marketing artists, according to court documents and his social media page. Additionally, he grew up with Marcos Jimenez, according to trial transcripts.
Vega spoke briefly at Tuesday’s hearing, saying Serrano deserved the most time legally permissible. He said at Jimenez’s sentencing that after recovering physically from his wounds, he and his family continue to be traumatized by the shooting, and he’s unable to go anywhere outside his home without a bodyguard.
“I want this guy to see his last day in a cell,” he told Altman.
How did the hit attempt unfold?
The FBI said Serrano and Jimenez flew from New York to Miami on an American Airlines flight on Aug. 21, 2019, rented a blue Nissan Rogue and stalked Vega.
Six days later, in the early evening of Aug. 27, Serrano drove Jimenez in the Nissan to Vega’s Kendale Lakes home.
Jimenez, wearing a surgical mask and gloves and carrying a gun Serrano gave to him after they had arrived in Miami, got out of the front passenger seat, approached Vega in his car and started shooting, according to a statement filed with Jimenez’s plea deal.
A witness told FBI agents that the men were offered $60,000 to carry out the hit, though that has never been confirmed, Julian Jimenez’s attorney, federal public defender Abigail Becker, said at his sentencing.
Serrano claimed Tuesday that he was never told he could have pleaded guilty from the start, avoid trial and possibly be rewarded with a lesser sentence that Altman handed down.
“If I could go back in time, I would take it back,” Serrano told Altman.
But Altman noted that not only did Serrano take his case to trial, soon after both he and Jimenez were arrested in August 2022, Serrano convinced his younger accomplice to write a letter stating he alone committed the crime, further obstructing the investigation.
Jimenez eventually wrote a sworn statement saying Serrano put him up to writing that letter.
Taking all of that into account, plus the severity of trying to murder Vega, Altman said Serrano “forfeited his right to come out and participate in ordered society.”
This story was originally published November 14, 2023 at 7:49 PM.
