South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Trials for slaying of Boca restaurant manager near
Proceedings for three men to begin Tuesday for the 2013 crime
The shooting death of Rafael Rodriguez put Boca Raton on edge nearly seven years ago.
He tended bar and managed Josephine’s Italian Restaurant, until masked robbers arrived one night about closing time.
Three Broward men were arrested in less than three months, credited to cellphone tracking, DNA and other evidence. But the prosecution of these alleged perpetrators got bogged down over legal challenges concerning the police use of a high-tech, and controversial, surveillance device.
With the first of three trials set to begin Tuesday with jury selection, Rodriguez’s family and friends hope they will finally get justice.
“Seven years later, unbelievable,” said Desmond Gonzales, a friend who lives near Rodriguez’s former home in upstate New York. “There’s a lot of family members, a lot of great people that would love some closure, and it’s about time.”
Barring an unexpected plea deal, Samuel Magic Walker, 34, of Lauderdale Lakes, will proceed to trial on one count of first-degree murder and six counts of robbery with a firearm.
Prosecutors say Walker’s DNA was found on the trigger of the gun used to kill Rodriguez, 46, just before midnight on Jan. 4, 2013.
Walker’s DNA also was recovered from a $20,000 watch taken at gunpoint from restaurant owner Josephine Tribunella and located during the investigation, records show.
The two co-defendants — labeled “career criminals” like Walker — are Quinton Redell Sylvestre, 32, of Fort Lauderdale, and Adalberto Montalvo Jr., 35, of Pompano Beach.
Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Joseph Marx could schedule their trials during a Sept. 25 hearing. A fourth, unnamed suspect has not been charged.
“This was an extremely complex case,” Boca Raton Police Chief Dan Alexander said when he announced the three arrests.
Robbers suddenly arrive
There were just six people left at Josephine’s when the robbers arrived: Tribunella, Rodriguez, a waiter, an entertainer, and a couple of patrons.
Police say Rodriguez had just exited a back door to accompany the waiter to his car when they were accosted and knocked to the ground. The waiter was pistol-whipped.
The assailants took Rodriguez’s iPhone and his Lexus car keys. They took the waiter’s Blackberry phone and wallet.
Based on video surveillance, police learned two thieves carried guns and backpacks. Inside the restaurant, the thieves collected Tribunella’s Chopard silver timepiece, along with an assortment of other jewelry, phones and car keys.
Before the bandits fled, Rodriguez was shot once in the midsection while he was still on the ground. He died a short time later at a hospital.
Search for clues
A crucial break in the case came a week later. Detectives met with a man who told them he was contacted by Sylvestre — someone the man knew by the nickname “Bald Head” — about two hours after the robbery. The witness said Sylvestre wanted to sell him the watch.
A sale was arranged at a gold-buying business four hours after the robbery, or 3:45 a.m. Jan. 5, 2013, and prosecutors have a video of the transaction, records show. After his arrest, Walker told police he is on the tape with accomplices Sylvestre and Montalvo, records show.
Meanwhile, Walker’s father, Samuel Walker Sr., 58, was arrested Jan. 29, 2013 in Deerfield Beach, and charged with pawning two rings that police said were stolen in the robbery. The dad reportedly said his son gave him the rings about one hour after the robbery.
Broward court records show that a jury acquitted the elder Walker of two felonies in December 2013.
The trail of the Chopard watch led investigators to obtain cellphone records, which show the younger Walker and Montalvo were in Boca Raton at the time of the Josephine’s robbery. Walker also said he never left Sylvestre’s side that night.
Detectives from the Broward County Sheriff’s Office and Boca Raton Police began monitoring their cellphones.
Twenty days after the slaying, police arrested the three during a home burglary in Boca Raton. The cops then searched homes linked to the suspects.
This led to the key discovery — in the home of Sylvestre’s girlfriend — of a black backpack containing three firearms, a white hockey mask, ammunition, and shoes, records show.
One gun, a Ruger 9 mm handgun, was identified as the murder weapon, based on the bullet that killed Rodriguez. Prosecutors say this is the gun with Walker’s DNA.
The soles of the shoes matched shoe prints found at Josephine’s. And Sylvestre’s DNA was found all over the mask, records show.
After Montalvo was arrested, police took his “highly reflective” Nike Air Max shoes, which appeared to match the shoes of a suspect on the Josephine’s surveillance video.
Police said a lab test later
confirmed blood swabbed off Montalvo’s shoes matched Rodriguez’s DNA.
Based on all of these findings, police filed the charges in the Josephine’s crimes.
Court battles
Lawyers for Walker, Sylvestre and Montalvo moved to get the evidence thrown out, based on claims that police violated their Constitutional rights over the cellphone surveillance.
A year ago, the Fourth District Court of Appeal handed a significant victory to Sylvestre, by limiting the evidence prosecutors can use against him.
This ruling concerned a device called a “StingRay” that enabled detectives to stealthily track his cellphone and learn his exact location.
The tool is a “cell-site simulator” that basically pretends to be a cellphone tower. It means an individual’s phone is communicating with police rather than an actual cellphone tower, without the user ever knowing it.
In this case, a Broward sheriff ’s detective did not get a warrant to use the device to find Sylvestre’s precise location, the appellate court found.
The same ruling explained investigators had obtained a lawful court order allowing the use of real-time cell tower information to locate Sylvestre’s phone.
But a sergeant testified that the tower information only narrowed the location of the cellphone to a general area covering several blocks. So he illegally used the StingRay, or cell-site simulator, to
zero in on Sylvestre, the ruling stated.
Once the cellphone was tracked, law enforcement got a search warrant to inspect Sylvestre’s girlfriend’s residence, where the gun and other evidence was found.
Franklin Prince, attorney for Sylvestre, said the ruling definitely weakened the prosecution.
“He’s in better shape because that evidence will not be admissible in his case,” Prince said.
Chris Haddad, attorney for Montalvo, said he thinks his client should get the same benefit and he plans to file a request with the court.
But on Aug. 26, Judge Marx denied a bid by Walker to throw out the evidence in his case, despite the appellate court ruling favoring Sylvestre. The judge noted that the cell-site simulator was not used to find Walker, based on assertions from prosecutors.
Walker’s attorney, Ruth Martinez-Estes, also was unsuccessful in a bid to prevent his incriminating statements from being used at trial.
Rafael Rodriguez’s friends remember him as a lovable person who genuinely cared about others and their happiness. He sold real estate during the day, but he was most passionate about diners enjoying the restaurant on Federal Highway, a quarter-mile north of Yamato Road.
“When you enter Josephine’s Italian Restaurant, you’re taken aback by the decor and impeccable service,” Rodriguez said in 2011 TV interview posted on YouTube. “There’s really nothing for you to do but just sit back and enjoy the evening.”