After surprise guilty plea, life or death of Coral Gables murderer hinges on penalty phase
A computer technician accused in the gruesome murder of two Coral Gables co-workers more than a decade ago took an unexpected guilty plea Friday — short-circuiting what was expected to be a lengthy trial and moving him a step closer to a possible death sentence.
Only a day after admitting to jurors he committed the crime, but imploring that he was insane at the time and had no recollection, Jose Rojas told the judge he fully understood the possible implications of his decision. In accepting the plea, Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Miguel de la O warned Rojas his decision could have dire consequences.
“The result of the penalty phase could be the death penalty,” said the judge. “You understand that?”
“Yes sir,” Rojas replied.
With that, Rojas was taken back to jail and the 12 jurors who had only served one day were called into the courtroom and told they could go home. Before releasing them, de la O informed jurors they may have to return in late January during the trial’s penalty phase. The decision of whether to argue for life instead of death before a judge or a jury rests with Rojas and his defense attorney, Jimmy Dellafera.
Outside the courtroom shortly after Rojas’s plea, Nicolina Venezia said she wanted Rojas to spend the rest of his life in prison and suffer for bludgeoning her mother to death.
“I would hope he never dies,” she said. “I think it should haunt him for the rest of his life.”
Prior to Friday’s unexpected twist, a request by Dellafera for a guilty plea from Rojas in exchange for life in prison was turned down by Assistant State Attorney Abbe Rifkin. The senior trial counselor at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office said Rojas’s crimes were too egregious.
A night earlier, Rojas hand-wrote a three-page letter to Judge de la O, claiming he still had no recollection of the day he murdered Frances Venezia and Robert James in a Coral Gables insurance adjustment office, but saying his life effectively ended that day.
“I do not want to live. I want to die,” Rojas told the judge. “I want to be with my wife [who died of cancer]. I want to make it easy for all.”
Rojas, who has two children, has spent the past 11 years in jail. He is charged with two counts of first-degree murder, two counts of kidnapping, and single counts of attempted armed robbery and of credit card fraud for the 2012 murders of Venezia and James.
He’s one of the first Miami-Dade defendants to fall under a new state law in which only an 8-4 jury vote is needed to be sentenced to death, as opposed to a unanimous verdict.
Before the murders, Rojas and James were employees at Frances Venezia’s small insurance adjustment firm in Coral Gables. James, a longtime family friend, did odd jobs. Rojas mostly did computer work. But times were tough, Rifkin explained to jurors, and Venezia struggled financially, often paying Rojas late, if at all. Desperate, Rojas used a company credit card to embezzle about $3,500 in gift cards and merchandise.
When Venezia learned she’d been swindled and Rojas found out, he formulated a premeditated plan to save himself from prison and kill his co-workers, the state contends. Dellafera blamed Rojas’s acts on head trauma and brain damage he told jurors that his client acquired from decades of playing soccer.
On the day of the murders, Rifkin told jurors, Rojas filled a bag with a ski mask and extra clothing, then drove his young daughter to school and went to Winn-Dixie, where he bought duct tape, dish towels and a mop. He got to the office before Venezia and James and when they arrived, he subdued them with a BB gun, tied them to chairs, then beat them to death with several hard objects.
Soaked in blood, he left the office and locked the door behind him, but ran into police downstairs and outside and fled across the street to an alleyway. There, police tackled him and took him into custody. Rojas was questioned for more than 17 hours, Dellafera said, before, police said, he admitted to the crime.
After Friday mornings proceedings, Dellafera said he believes Rojas was jarred after seeing pictures of the crime scene he was accused of creating.
“I think he realized [what he’d done] at that point,” the attorney said.
This story was originally published December 8, 2023 at 12:28 PM.
