Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
4 charged in jury tampering
Jurors contacted on social media
A career criminal attempted to sabotage his latest burglary trial by coordinating a scheme with his girlfriend and two friends to influence the jury, according to prosecutors and court records.
But the plan backfired, and now all four have been charged with jury tampering.
To top it off, Demetrius Elliot, 42, the man who was on trial in the first place, later pleaded guilty to the burglary charge.
The stakes for Elliot, of Fort Lauderdale, were not especially high. He was already serving two life sentences for home invasion robberies committed in Fort Lauderdale in 2014. A conviction in a Victoria Park burglary case would not have added a day to his sentence, and an acquittal would not have set him free.
But on the day before deliberations were to begin, according to arrest reports, Elliot got a fellow Broward jail inmate, Kelvin Benjamin, 21, to call Elliot’s girlfriend, Janay Martin, asking her
to track down social media accounts belonging to the jurors. the report. “Prosecutors say Benjamin used another inmate’s personal identification number to make the call, making it more difficult to trace the conversation to Elliot.
Investigators said they found the calls anyway. Elliot’s entire botched plan, according to the arrest reports, is outlined in a half-hour recording that has yet to be shared with defense lawyers.
“Arrest reports are rarely a reliable version of events,” said defense lawyer Bruce Raticoff, who represents Martin.
Elliot’s lawyer, Jason Rosner, agreed. “My client says he knows nothing about it. He maintains his innocence… That’s why we have the system we set up, so he can have his day in court.”
Rosner represented Elliot in the Victoria Park burglary case.
After Rosner and prosecutor Ryan Kelley delivered their closing arguments in the Victoria Park case on Feb. 15, Broward Circuit Judge Bernard Bober decided to send the panel of six jurors and one alternate home for the evening. Deliberations were scheduled to begin the following morning.
That, investigators say, gave Elliot the opening to get a message to the jury.
Jurors came in the next day, with two telling the judge they had been contacted via Facebook Messenger by someone who wanted to undermine the credibility of a police witness, Det. Leann Swisher.
“Anonymous tip Det. Swisher from the Police Department is Trying to Frame a Innocent Man...” the message began.
The defense requested and was granted a mistrial, and the tampering investigation began.
The messages came from a Facebook account belonging to “Lashay Butler.” Investigators traced the account to a fourth defendant, Krystal Dillard, 27, of Fort Lauderdale.
Now Elliot, Martin, Benjamin and Dillard are charged with jury tampering, a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison.
Martin was already on probation in a related burglary case and faces an additional 15 years in prison said Raticoff, her lawyer.
Court records do not indicate who is representing Dillard, who is due in court on May 8.
Benjamin has six pending felony cases for charges ranging from aggravated assault to armed robbery and armed kidnapping. The cases date back to 2012, when Benjamin was legally a minor, making a life sentence unlikely for him. He is scheduled to appear in court on the jury tampering case today.
Elliot and Martin formally entered not guilty pleas to the jury tampering charges last week and are due back in court May 1.