Man accused in deadly carjacking of Homestead woman enters plea, could face death penalty

The man accused of fatally carjacking a Homestead woman at a Central Florida intersection, who attorneys say could face the death penalty, pleaded not guilty Friday morning to the federal charges brought against him.

Jordanish Torres-Garcia, 28, tapped his chained foot and occasionally scanned the gallery during his arraignment inside an Orlando federal courtroom. Magistrate Judge Robert M. Norway took note of the plea and set a hearing for June 20.

READ MORE: Homestead woman’s carjacking death unveils tangled web of drugs and murder beyond Florida

Torres-Garcia was charged with carjacking resulting in death, kidnapping and possession of a firearm in the commission of a crime resulting in death. Prosecutors allege that he was the fully masked man caught on video on April 11 pointing a semiautomatic rifle at the driver’s side door of 31-year-old Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ white Dodge Durango.

Hours later, Guerrero De Aguasvivas was found shot to death inside her torched Durango at a construction site in nearby Osceola County.

READ MORE: Unveiling a drug nexus? A look at the probe into Homestead woman’s deadly carjacking

Outside the courthouse, Torres-Garcia’s legal team told reporters that prosecutors are weighing the possibility of pursuing the death penalty.

READ MORE: Feds take control of probe into deadly carjacking of Homestead woman. More arrests expected

All three of the charges could carry a life or death sentence, attorney Robert Weeden said. The Justice Department — and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody — would have to approve the death penalty.

While a tentative trial date was set for July 1, the trial is unlikely to occur for years, Torres-Garcia’s lawyers said.

“Every capital case is always a complicated case,” defense attorney Todd Doss said.

Federal prosecutors have only sought the death penalty once during the term of President Joe Biden, the first president in office to openly oppose capital punishment. Earlier this year, federal prosecutors announced that they planned to pursue the death penalty in the hate crime case of the gunman convicted of killing 10 Black shoppers at a Buffalo, New York, grocery store in May 2022.

Federal capital punishment cases take years, and Torres-Garcia’s case is early in the process, the attorneys said. Reviewing the evidence — and sifting through specifics — in such cases can delay trials considerably.

Torres-Garcia, court records show, admitted to federal agents that he kidnapped Guerrero De Aguasvivas but claimed that someone paid him $1,500 to deliver the Homestead woman to “another individual” half an hour before the kidnapping.

READ MORE: Man admits he was paid to kidnap Homestead woman in Central Florida, FBI says

At least four other people were arrested in connection to the probe. They include:

▪ Kevin Ocasio Justiniano, 28, who is accused of driving the green Acura that the carjacker hopped out of during the ambush.

▪ Giovany Crespo Hernandez, 27, who, investigators say, was the last person Guerrero De Aguasvivas spoke with before her death. He was initially arrested on state drug charges, though he has since pleaded not guilty to charges in federal court.

▪Monicsabel Romero Soto, 28, the live-in girlfriend of Crespo Hernandez. Romero Soto was surveilled by federal agents after three bricks of cocaine were found in a lamp in a package sent from Puerto Rico to a St. Cloud home in Osceola County.

▪Francisco Estrella Chicon, an Orange County deputy accused of illegally accessing the personal and professional profile information of the lead Seminole County detective on the case and sharing that information with Guerrero De Aguasvivas’ husband, Miguel Angel Aguasvivas of Homestead.

This story was originally published May 31, 2024 at 4:17 PM.