Teammate accused of killing UM football star maintains innocence, nixes plea deal
The trial of the man accused in the 2006 murder of his University of Miami football teammate Bryan Pata started on Tuesday with jury selection — a week after he turned down a plea deal.
Dressed in a suit, Rashaun Jones, 40, faced panels of potential jurors, some of whom may decide his guilt or innocence.
Pata, a 22-year-old Hurricanes star defensive lineman expected to be a top NFL draft pick, was shot in the back of the head and killed on Nov. 7, 2006, outside his home at the Colony Apartments in Kendall, near Dadeland. Pata, who graduated from Miami Central High School, had just returned from football practice.
Jones, who has pleaded not guilty, was arrested on a second-degree murder charge in 2021, 15 years after Pata’s death. The case had been one of South Florida’s most well-known unsolved killings. Jones’ arrest came after ESPN had published a detailed story about him and Pata’s murder.
READ MORE: Accused of UM football star Bryan Pata’s murder, teammate offered a plea deal
In court last week, prosecutors offered Jones a plea deal that would have him spending 15 years in prison. Jones has already served five years awaiting trial and would likely get credit for the time served. Jones, however, said he wouldn’t take the plea deal because he didn’t kill Pata.
“Deep down in my heart, I know I’m innocent,” Jones told Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda.
Prosecutors and police have said Jones and Pata had been feuding in the months leading up to Pata’s death., and that Jones had previously been involved with Pata’s girlfriend at the time, Jada Brody. Brody was inside Pata’s apartment during the shooting.
If convicted of Pata’s murder, Jones faces a life sentence.
The impending trial
The case against Jones is mainly circumstantial. Cellphone records place him in the area of the Colony Apartments in Kendall during the shooting, prosecutors say, and an eyewitness identified Jones as the man fleeing the scene after the shooting.
In October, Judge Miranda found that Paul Conner, the key witness who identified Jones as the man running away after he heard the “pop” of a gunshot, was mentally unfit to testify in person at trial.
Conner, 81 and a former UM professor, picked Jones out of two police photo lineups on two different occasions, once after the 2006 shooting and again in 2022.
READ MORE: Key witness in UM football player’s murder is mentally unfit to testify, judge rules
Detectives believed Conner was dead. But ESPN tracked him down in late August at his last known address in Louisville. Prosecutors successfully sought to admit Conner’s testimony, which was recorded in 2022 due to his age, health issues and the COVID-19 pandemic. The judge has allowed prosecutors to play Conner’s recorded testimony at Jones’ trial.
The judge also barred Jones’ attorneys from presenting evidence related to other people confessing to the murder, allegedly placing a hit on Pata and threatening Pata before his killing. The defense also will not be allowed to elicit testimony about a fight at a club involving Pata, several of his UM teammates and gang members months before the murder, the judge ruled.
This story was originally published February 10, 2026 at 3:46 PM.
