Man admits to being gunman who carjacked woman in case involving drugs and money, affidavit says
ORLANDO, Fla. — A man questioned earlier this month about his role in the fatal carjacking of a woman in central Florida told investigators he was paid to kidnap her and hand her over to someone, according to court documents filed Thursday.
Jordanian Torres-Garcia told investigators he was the masked man in a hoodie seen in a video jumping out of a vehicle at a traffic light in suburban Orlando and pointing a semi-automatic rifle at Katherine Altagracia Guerrero De Aguasvivas , who was stopped at the door. of his vehicle at the stoplight, according to an affidavit filed Thursday by an FBI agent in federal court in Orlando.
Garcia said the gun was unloaded and given to him a half hour before the carjacking two weeks ago. Garcia jumped into the South Florida woman’s vehicle, made a U-turn and drove away. Garcia told investigators he was paid $1,500 to deliver her to a person not named in the affidavit.
Hours after the carjacking, the 31-year-old woman’s body was found in her burned-out car in another Orlando-area county. The statement said she had been shot multiple times.
The last person she spoke to via video call before her killing was Giovany Joel Crespo Hernandez, to whom authorities believe she handed over money, Seminole County Sheriff Dennis Lemma said at a news conference Tuesday.
“This case is about drugs and money,” Lemma said.
Hernandez was taken into custody on unrelated drug charges.
Garcia was questioned last week after his arrest on a federal warrant for probation violation on a weapons charge in Puerto Rico. He was being held at the Seminole County Jail in Florida on Thursday, with an FBI agent affidavit supporting a charge of carjacking resulting in death.
Court documents show his public defender was asked to be removed from the case due to a conflict of interest. His new court-appointed attorney, Roger Weeden, said in an email late Thursday that without another indictment, there was no charge to plead.
“Going forward, the first plea after indictment will always be ‘not guilty,’ which freezes the case, allows for discovery, defense investigation and pre-resolution negotiations,” Weeden said.
The driver of the car Garcia jumped from, Kevin Ocasio Justiniano, was taken into custody in Puerto Rico earlier this week on unrelated drug trafficking and weapons charges, authorities said.
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This story has been corrected to show that the FBI agent’s affidavit supports Garcia’s charge of carjacking resulting in death, rather than Garcia being held on a charge of carjacking resulting in death.