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Jury Finds Man Guilty of
1st Degree Murder & Rape:
DNA Key To Solving 1990 Case |
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Congratulations to Division Chief Sonali Desai and Sexual Battery Unit Division Chief Natalie Snyder for securing a guilty verdict against Dale Ewers on charges of First-Degree Murder, Sexual Battery with a Firearm, Kidnapping with a Firearm, and Robbery with a Firearm.
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| “I am extremely proud of the work that Sonali and Natalie did on this difficult and brutal case of murder and rape against two unsuspecting women,” said State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle. “Thanks to the collaborative efforts between my office and the Miami Beach Police Department we were able to find justice for both victims and hopefully bring a sense of peace to them and their families.” |
| On September 21, 1990, Ewers was able to gain access to the apartment of deceased Victim Mercedes Perez by asking for the telephone number of the building manager. He was dressed in a suit and carried a briefcase. When she went to her bedroom to get the number, he struck her before grabbing her girlfriend who happened to be there from behind. Ewers shot Perez in the head killing her and proceeded to rape the surviving Victim. When he was done, he gave her a towel and told her to wipe herself. That towel and the DNA evidence on it would lead to identifying the Defendant and to jurors convicting him in less than three hours of deliberation. |
| At the time of the murder and rape, DNA analysis was not as easily available for solving cases. It was a new science, and it was expensive to perform the testing. Thanks to a 2010 federal grant for DNA testing for cold cases, Miami Beach Police detectives were able to test the semen on the towel from the crime scene which led to a match to Ewers DNA from a prior conviction out of state. The surviving Victim was able to positively identify him in a photo array and in 2012 a warrant filed for his arrest. Ewers was located in Jamaica where he had been deported in after serving time for a 2008 arrest in Massachusetts. The extradition process to bring him back to Miami-Dade took five years and he was back in our jurisdiction and in custody in 2017. |
| The Ewers trial which began in late February. The surviving Victim, now 61, bravely testified to the horror of witnessing the murder of her lifelong friend and herself being held at gunpoint and raped. “He turned me around. My back towards him. Put his left hand on my mouth and with his right hand put the handgun to my head,” she said on the stand. |
| The Defendant also took the stand and through his testimony revealed that he was a five-time convicted felon. Prosecutors were able to impeach his testimony after he lied under oath about not possessing a firearm. Prosecutors show that Ewers had been arrested in Hallandale Beach a few months before Perez was murdered. He was found hiding in the bushes near an apartment complex with a hunting knife and a .32-caliber pistol. |
| The jurors were able to evaluate that and the DNA evidence and delivered a guilty verdict in less than three hours. Dale Ewers will be sentenced to Life in Prison on March 19. |
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Congratulations to ASAs Marko Nikitovic and Nicholas Sconzo for securing a guilty verdict on the charges of Armed Robbery with a Deadly Weapon and Aggravated Assault with a Deadly Weapon in a trial before Judge Cabarga.
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| On October 24, 2022, two young men were doing laundry at a laundromat when they noticed the Defendant sitting on one of their mopeds. They went outside and asked him to get off and leave the moped alone. The Defendant pulled out a machete and started swinging at them. The Victims backed away. The Defendant then walked away from the location while pushing the moped down the street. Although the Victims kept their distance, they followed the Defendant for several blocks while speaking to the 911 operator and updating the police about his location. When the Defendant saw the police drive up, he dropped the moped and escaped by hopping fences in the neighborhood. One of the officers who had given chase spotted him the next day and took him into custody. Later, both Victims positively identified the Defendant in separate photographic line-ups and the Defendant’s fingerprints were found on the back of the moped. |
| The Defense argued misidentification and alleged that sloppy police work and an improper influence - one of the Victims had seen a picture of the Defendant at some point before the police showed him the lineup - contributed to the misidentification. Although the Defendant’s fingerprints were on the back of the moped, the defense argued that the Defendant’s fingerprints were not found on the handlebars. They also argued reasonable doubt because DNA samples from the moped were not tested. A lone holdout to the guilty verdict held onto those points for almost ten hours of deliberation before conceding that his doubts were not reasonable. |
| ASA Nikitovic would like to thank his trial partner, ASA Nicholas Sconzo, for agreeing to second-chair this trial after his own trial case plead at the last minute and for his invaluable support and guidance. They would both like to thank Victim-Witness Coordinator Lizette Hernandez for not only enduring relentless requests to help coordinate the attendance of the witnesses, but also for helping their Spanish-speaking Victims go through their depositions and prepare to testify. |
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Congratulations to Felony Division Chief Sara Imm, ASA Khalil Quinan, and ASA Elizabeth Utset for securing a conviction against the Defendant on charges of First-Degree Felony Murder, Attempted Felony Murder, and Attempted Armed Robbery. The case went to trial following the Defendant’s demand for speedy trial. The Defendant was sentenced to life in prison in a sentencing hearing held immediately after the verdict.
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| The Defendant conspired with two friends - Codefendant #1 and Codefendant #2 - to set up a robbery of Victim #1. Codefendant #1 posed as a would-be buyer of three pairs of Yeezy sneakers that Victim #1 was advertising on Instagram. Codefendant #1 told Victim #1 to meet him in front of a house in Codefendant #2 neighborhood. Victim #1 drove to the location and sat in his car with his 18-year-old girlfriend, Victim #2, in the passenger seat. |
| The Defendant appeared from the side of the house and approached the passenger side of the car. He pretended to be the person who was interested in buying the shoes. Codefendant #2 left his house a short distance away and approached the driver’s side of Victim #1’s car. Codefendant #2 walked to the Victim’s vehicle car window, pulled out a firearm, pointed it at Victim #1, and fired one shot. The bullet struck both the Victims, but Victim #2 succumbed to the injuries. |
| The defense argued that there was no conspiracy between the Defendant and the other charged Codefendants. They argued that the Defendant did not know Codefendant #2 would show up with a gun and that he acted independently without the Defendant’s knowledge. They also argued that the Defendant could have been innocently attempting to buy the shoes or planning to steal them without using the force or threat required for a robbery. The State was able to show how the Defendants were working in concert through a combination of surveillance video and cell phone evidence that circumstantially established their intention to commit a robbery, which made this Defendant a principal to Felony Murder. |
| The ASAs could not have been successful without the diligent investigation and trial preparation by Miami-Dade Police Department Lead Detective Chris Villano, Sgt Sergio Cremisini, and the entire Homicide team. The attorneys would also like to thank Trial Coordinator Matthew Schultz for assisting throughout the trial with witnesses and exhibits. Special thanks as well to Victim Advocate Diane Santana who sat with and supported a large group of family members of the victims throughout the proceedings. |
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Congratulations to ASAs Carolina Sanchez and Marko Drago Nikitovic for securing a guilty verdict against the Defendant for the charge of Attempted First- Degree Murder in a trial before Judge Venzer. The Defendant faces a firearm mandatory minimum penalty of 25 years to life in prison.
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| In the early morning hours of November 8, 2021, the Victim was called repeatedly by two unknown individuals asking to buy drugs. The Victim refused to sell to them, saying that he did not sell to people he did not know. Shortly thereafter, a friend of the Victim called and vouched for them. Then the Victim agreed to meet them on the 2900 block of Miami Beach. Unbeknownst to the Victim, the drug transaction was a setup. The Victim’s friend arranged for the two men to kill the Victim for allegedly sleeping with his girlfriend. |
| At the agreed location, the Codefendant approached the Victim as he sat in his car on the side of the road. The Victim quickly realized that Codefendant did not have the money for the drugs and grew suspicious. The Victim said he would leave if the Codefendant did not provide the money. As he was about to drive away, the Defendant snuck up behind him and shot into the vehicle seven times. The Victim was hit by two bullets in his abdomen. He was rushed to the trauma center where an emergency surgery saved his life. He lost a piece of his liver and received 25 stitches. He was not able to identify either Defendant. |
| The police investigation discovered CCTV camera footage of the entire shooting. The Victim’s cellphone records lead the police to Codefendant, and his cellphone records lead them to Defendant. Detectives went to the Defendant’s address and interviewed his girlfriend. She informed them that the Defendant came home about 30 minutes after the shooting. She said he was incredibly nervous and said he had just been involved in a shooting. However, he told her that the Codefendant was the shooter. Upon being shown the CCTV camera footage, she affirmatively identified the Defendant as the shooter but refused to give a recorded statement. |
| The Codefendant ultimately plead guilty and testified against the Defendant at trial as a cooperating witness. He confessed to his own role in the crime and identified the Defendant as the shooter and the individual capture on the CCTV footage. |
| The Defendant’s girlfriend refused to cooperate and ignored several subpoenas. The Defendant’s girlfriend was personally served with a subpoena by a police officer the night before she would testify. She was informed that the State would compel her attendance in accordance with the law. She could either come in and testify willingly or be arrested and brought to testify by order of the court. |
| The Defendant’s girlfriend begrudgingly appeared. However, in a courtroom deposition that took place moments before she testified before the jury, she recanted her story. She denied that she had identified the man in the video as the Defendant and denied telling the police that the Defendant admitted that he was involved in the shooting. Then the defense objected to her testimony, arguing that the State could not call her after she recanted solely for the purpose of impeaching her. However, the State replied that additional testimony regarding her knowledge of the Codefendant’s relationship with the Defendant as coworkers and friends for months before the incident would be elicited. This testimony would establish the connections between the two men, corroborate the Codefendant’s testimony, and add context to his ability to identify the Defendant on the CCTV footage. |
| Judge Venzer overruled the defense’s objection, permitted the State to call her, strongly warned her against providing false testimony, and informed her about what a perjury charge could entail if she lied to the jury under oath. Despite the recantation, the State was able elicit that testimony and confront her with her prior statements to the police. |
| After less than an hour of deliberation, the Jury found the Defendant was guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and that the firearm minimum mandatory penalty applied. |
| The prosecutors would like to thank Trial Coordinators Andres Stolk-Cocco and Nelson Escobar; Victim Witness Specialist Tessa Lieber; ASAs Jared Lorenz, Natalie Mendez, Conor Soper, and Ashley Ramkishun; and the phenomenal Litigation Support Team. |
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Congratulations to Sexual Battery Unit (SBU) ASA Bronwyn Nayci and ASA Jose Rohaidy for securing a guilty verdict on three counts of Sexual Activity with a Child by a Person in Familial or Custodial Authority. The charges are FirstDegree Felonies punishable by up to life imprisonment.
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| For most of the 12-year-old Victim’s life, her father, the Defendant, was in and out of prison and absent from her life. Weeks after reuniting with his daughter, she disclosed to a family friend that he had engaged in a sexual relationship with her. The family friend sent messages to the Defendant on Instagram from the Victim’s account telling him that the Victim was being taken to the doctor. The Defendant sent replies telling the Victim how to get rid of his DNA from inside of her. He also sent her voice notes of stories to tell about how his DNA got there. |
| Before the police got involved, the Defendant convinced his daughter to run away so they could meet up to get their stories straight. The Defendant denied the allegations, and of course, there were no witnesses to the sexual abuse. |
| The defense focused on the fact that the Victim’s Instagram messages were made up by the family friend and motivated by the family friend’s animosity towards him. However, the jury was convinced of the Defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt by his own Instagram messages instructing the Victim how to get rid of evidence and his own voice notes telling her how to lie to authorities. Additionally, the minor Victim gave statements and descriptions of the sexual acts the Defendant committed upon her to the detective that were too detailed for a child to give without having lived through them. |
| The ASAs would like to thank Sexual Battery Unit (SBU) Victim/Witness Coordinator Nancy Germeille for finding the essential family friend for the Instagram messages, for supporting the Victim, and for her assistance in coordinating travel for our witnesses; Guardian ad Litem Francis Feinberg for supporting the Victim and staying by her side during trial; and SBU secretaries Charlotte Haslem and Valerie Ford for assisting with trial preparations. Also, thanks to the Litigation Support team – Angel Del Castillo, George Washington III, Trevor Wanless, and Rene Ferrer – for their assistance with redacting the interviews and Instagram messages before and during trial. |
