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Paula Lavigne
Multiple authors
A former University of Miami football player went on trial for murder Monday, nearly 20 years after his teammate Brian Pata was shot to death in the parking lot of his off-campus apartment.
Pata, the youngest of nine children, was a 22-year-old defensive tackle projected as a second- or third-round NFL draft pick when he was shot in the head on Nov. 7, 2006.
Police did not arrest former Hurricane Rashaun Jones in connection with Pata’s death until August 2021. State prosecutors charged him with second-degree murder, alleging in the arrest warrant that teammates had “ongoing problems.”
Jones, 39, has been in custody for the past 4½ years amid court delays and changing attorneys on both sides. He maintains his innocence throughout.
At a pretrial hearing on Feb. 2, the state offered a plea deal of 15 years in prison with credit for time served. That’s below the minimum guidelines in Florida, where Jones could face life in prison if convicted of second-degree murder.
Florida’s 11th Circuit Court Judge Christina Miranda spoke directly to Jones for a few minutes during a Feb. 2 pretrial hearing, encouraging him to consider the plea and asking if he wanted to make a counteroffer.
“Some people plead no contest because it’s in their best interest to get the case resolved. That means that’s a gamble you’re not willing to take,” he said. “Now, you’re a fairly young man. If it was resolved somehow, your life would have changed because you’re going to put it on your record. But you’re five years into it now and it’s not like you’re going to have a professional career in football.”
Jones responded to the judge: “Deep in my heart, I know I’m innocent. That means if I have to go to trial to prove my innocence, I’m willing to go there,” he said. “Getting fired is the only thing I’m willing to accept.”
In March 2022, Miranda agreed to grant Jones an $850,000 bond and allow a pending trial; However, Jones has not been able to pay the required amount for the release — typically 10%, or $85,000 — a source with knowledge of the situation told ESPN.
A spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office declined to comment on the pending trial.
Pata’s family, including brother Edwin Pata, said in the immediate aftermath of the killing that they believed Jones was guilty, and that they were looking forward to the trial as an opportunity to finally put the shooting to rest.
“It’s constantly in our minds… we just have to be prepared for it and know what to expect and be able to handle it,” Edwin Pata said. “It was hard to even sit through the deposition. You know, he’s nothing to me. And I try not to give him energy. … I try to avoid looking at him, but there are times when I can’t avoid looking at the person who has brought the most misery into our family’s life.”
Jones’ attorney, Sara Alvarez, declined to comment for the story except in a statement issued to ESPN: “Rashawn has waited almost 5 years to have his day in court, and now it’s finally here, we’ll just echo what Rashaun said … when he declined the court’s invitation to plead no contest and I settled his case without a trial of my heart. Not guilty.'”
Pata’s unsolved murder lay dormant for more than 10 years before ESPN began requesting police records in the case amid Pata’s family’s growing frustration with the apparent inaction of investigators. Police have said publicly for years that they have no prime suspects and no single person of interest.
According to police records and interviews with ESPN over the years, teammates said Jones and Pata clashed over a woman who had sex with Jones before dating and living with Pata, and the two teammates had a previous feud. One of Pata’s brothers said Jones threatened to shoot Brian Pata.
Police records indicate that Jones was the only Miami football player who did not attend a mandatory meeting at the athletic department’s facilities on the night of the shooting. Jones’ cellphone records contradicted his claim that he never left the house at the time of the Pata murder, and the bullet recovered from the shooting was consistent with the type of gun Jones had previously been seen with, according to the arrest affidavit.
Prosecutors also have an eyewitness, retired University of Miami writing instructor Paul Conner, who lived at the apartment complex where the killings took place. Records show he reached out to police the day after the shooting, saying he heard a “pop” sound and saw someone “jogging” away from the parking lot entrance around 7 p.m. when Pata was killed. He also picked Jones out of a photo lineup, police said.
In July 2025, police and prosecutors told Judge Miranda that they had been unable to identify Conner and indicated that he was likely dead. Within weeks, ESPN reporters found Conner alive and living in Louisville, Kentucky, despite apparent memory challenges that may have hindered his testimony. Instead, the judge allowed Conner’s testimony from Jones’ 2022 bond hearing to be used in the upcoming trial.
A witness wasn’t the only thing prosecutors said they couldn’t identify. During the pre-trial hearing, defense attorneys asked the state for documents related to the case that the state said had either been destroyed or they were unable to locate, even though they had previously been provided to ESPN through a records request.
One of those was an August 2007 polygraph report by jail inmate Bernard Brinson who told police on records show that a fellow inmate told him he was the one who killed Pata as a hired hitman for $10,000. At a January hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Christina Diamond told the judge they had no record of the documents. But in March 2020, Miami-Dade attorneys provided documents to ESPN and noted that Brinson was “truthful in his responses.” ESPN raised the discrepancy with Diamond last week. At a final pretrial hearing Friday, prosecutors acknowledged the document existed but downplayed its significance in Miranda, noting that polygraph reports are inadmissible in court.
ESPN sued the Miami-Dade Police Department in 2020 to gain access to complete and unredacted records, and during the proceedings in that case, an officer overseeing the investigation said police had come close to arresting “who killed Brian Patak” and at least a decade earlier.
An officer told the court that an arrest could be made “in the near future,” which police department attorneys said was because the case was still active and the records were thus protected from disclosure under Florida law.
ESPN published a lengthy story about Pater’s murder in November 2020 that detailed police records and included other new information about the case, with police considering Jones as the prime suspect. Jones was arrested about nine months later.
The current lead detective on the case, Juan Segovia, said in a 2024 deposition that police were unable to uncover any new evidence in subsequent years that would have given them probable cause to arrest Jones in 2021. “It’s always been there,” he said, but in 2007, the state attorney didn’t think it was enough to warrant an arrest.
ESPN’s investigation uncovered several leads that police followed, including a nightclub fight involving possible gang members. The report also found confessions to three alleged murders by other people, including one released by federal immigration officials from a man who died in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti and another from Brinson, a prison inmate who said a fellow inmate told him he killed Pata for money.
A self-confessed confession from Jones came to a fellow inmate while incarcerated following his arrest in 2021. According to documents and interviews with ESPN, that inmate said Jones told him he confronted Pata out of anger but did not intend to kill him.
ESPN’s investigation also identified numerous police mistakes and inconsistencies, including leads that were not ultimately followed up and warrants and those who were not interviewed that evening.
In the months leading up to the trial, prosecutors also said police and county attorneys previously told ESPN they could not discover multiple documents that listed the Brinson polygraph report and a “lead sheet” that police said listed the suspects they investigated. Lead sheets are finally produced.
But much of that information will never reach a jury. Prosecutors chose not to hold a jailhouse informant that Jones had confessed to. In pretrial hearings over the past few weeks, Judge Miranda decided not to allow evidence related to other possible theories and Pata’s other possible interpersonal conflicts, and he decided to keep any testimony from ESPN’s record case hearing.
Although Alvarez argued that he should be able to question whether the police did enough to rule out other theories, Judge Miranda said the defense failed to gather enough “credible evidence” to engage the case.
Pata, a Miami native whose parents immigrated from Haiti, grew up around Little Haiti. His siblings said the main reason Putter pursued a spot in the NFL was to buy a house after his mother, Jeanette, worked multiple jobs for years to care for her children, including Brian.
At the University of Miami, the 6-foot-4, 280-pound defensive tackle was projected to be selected in the 2007 NFL Draft. The suit he chose for the event was buried.
On the day of the shooting, Jones heard from then-head coach Larry Coker that he was being dismissed from the team for failing his second drug test. He and Pata had previously had disagreements, and according to police documents and interviews with former teammates, Jones got into a fight with Pata in a dorm room and Jones told him to “clip it up.”
Teammates also said that at one point, Jones was taunting Pata about his girlfriend, Jada Brody, which led to a fistfight in the locker room.
According to the police report, on the night of the shooting, Brody said he was cleaning a dog kennel inside their apartment when he “thought he heard an argument downstairs.”
She left the apartment and walked into the parking lot, “where she discovered her boyfriend … unresponsive.” Pata was on his back and bleeding on the walkway near his black Infiniti QX56 in his assigned parking space. She said she ran upstairs and called 911.
Rescue workers arrived and pronounced Pata dead at approximately 7:07 p.m. with a gunshot wound about 3 inches above and an inch and a half in front of his left ear. His car keys and phone were on the ground near his body, and in his left front pocket was a black wallet containing nine $100 bills.
Jones said in a conversation with an ESPN reporter and under police questioning that he did not kill Pata.
In a videotaped police interview from the day of Jones’ arrest, he said he was upset that day because of the suspension. Jones said she turned off her phone and then changed her phone number because she was worried friends and relatives were giving her a hard time. Jones has denied ever owning a gun or threatening anyone.
“I know what it might look like given the circumstances,” Jones said in the interview. “But I tell you, I had nothing to do with his death.”
Testimony in the case is expected to begin next week after jury selection.
ESPN’s Dan Arruda and Scott Frankel contributed to this report.
