A judge struck down a murder charge against one of three men accused of shooting and killing a man where nearly 100 bullets were fired last year.
The first-degree murder count against Antonio Jones, 23, was dismissed Tuesday when York County Court of Common Pleas Judge Maria Musti Cook deemed that the evidence used to identify and charge Jones was insufficient.
“Circumstantial evidence presented against defendant Jones in this case, even when viewed in a light most favorable to [prosecutors], does not rise above a level of speculation and conjecture,” she wrote in her order.
Furthermore, Musti Cook found no video evidence placing Jones at the homicide scene.
“The identification of [the] defendant … could have identified any number of Black males in York County,” she wrote.
The judge sided with arguments Jones’ attorney, Michael Diamondstein, made in a habeas corpus petition. He disputed the evidence against Jones, which included mobile phone information, his whereabouts after the homicide and police identifying him as a man seen wearing a mask.
“Jones is grateful that the court followed the law and agreed that there was no evidence to support the Commonwealth’s allegation that he was involved in Mr. Carr’s murder,” Diamondstein said, in a statement to The York Dispatch.
Kyle King, spokesperson for the York County District Attorney’s Office, said the office is reviewing the order and weighing options on how to proceed.
Musti Cook ordered the dismissal without prejudice, leaving the door open for the potential that charges could be refiled against Jones later.
Jones, of Springettsbury Township, and another man, Rashad Colon, 21, of York City, were both charged in April with shooting and killing Shaheim Carr on July 6, 2022.
A third man, Jaquez Brown, 27, was charged and arrested a few days after the shooting. York City Police have so far not identified or charged a fourth person seen at the scene.
Security camera video showed four men climb out of a gold Ford Fusion and open fire on Carr as he left a house in the 300 block of West Philadelphia Street shortly after 11 a.m. Three of the men, while firing guns with extended magazines, then chased Carr into a breezeway where he was later found dead. The men then fled back to the Ford, and it drove off.
Investigators said nearly 100 bullets were fired at the scene.
Two of the men wore hoods and face masks. In charging documents, police identified them as Jones and Colon.
Detective Frank Clark, in charging documents and in testimony, said the men in the video matched Jones and Colon’s builds, physical features and skin complexions.
“I’m familiar with him,” Clark said of Jones in May.
Clark was testifying to the evidence during Jones and Colon’s district court hearing — an initial hearing held to determine if evidence is sufficient for a jury to hear at trial on the common pleas level.
Diamondstein and Colon’s attorney, Melanie Wiesman, both disputed the testimony then as they argued the masked men’s faces were never shown in the video, nor did eyewitnesses help identify them.
After the shooting, investigators said security camera video helped them track the gold Ford as it wound through York City and into Spring Garden Township.
There, they alleged, video showed the car dropping Brown off, followed by Brown walking to a home in the 600 block of Wheatlyn Drive. That video, along with images that showed Brown wearing clothes similar to those seen at the shooting scene, helped police identify him.
Investigators alleged Brown, Colon, Jones and another man met up later on July 6.
A combination of security video, phone images and phone information showed them riding in another vehicle together and at a local hotel, according to charging documents. They wore different clothes than those seen in the video of the homicide.
Police later found the Ford abandoned at an apartment complex and learned it was stolen. Cleaning supplies had been used to wipe evidence from the interior, police said.
Investigators pulled the car’s Bluetooth computer system and had an FBI lab analyze the data.
Jones’ phone had connected to the system on the day of the homicide, Detective Clark alleged. Brown’s phone was also somehow associated with that Bluetooth system.
Clark also said cellphone tower data put Jones’ phone in the area of the homicide scene.
Judge Musti Cook found in her ruling that the Ford’s data didn’t show when, before or after Carr’s death, Jones’ phone connected to the Bluetooth system. She also pointed to Diamondstein’s argument that Jones’ sister lives within four blocks of the shooting scene.
Diamondstein did not respond to a question asking whether Jones or his phone were at his sister’s home that day.
Musti Cook, however, found the evidence identifying Jones to be lacking. The judge also said images of Jones after the shooting didn’t place him at the scene when it went down.
Diamondstein filed the habeas corpus petition after the judge in the district court hearing in May found the evidence was sufficient to bring before a jury, and after Jones and Colon were arraigned into the common pleas court.
Brown, meanwhile, is apparently also working through a legal challenge in the case.
A hearing on the issue was scheduled to resume Monday. But his attorney wasn’t available, and the hearing had to be postponed until Dec. 8.
No challenge has been filed in Colon’s case. His next hearing is set for Nov. 29, court documents show.
Wiesman did not return a call seeking comment Thursday.
Though the murder charge against Jones was dropped in this case, he’s still charged in a separate homicide case from five years ago.
Investigators allege Jones, as a 17-year-old, shot and killed 20-year-old Phillip Banks Jr. on North Franklin Street in May 2018. Another man, Tyler Orr, was allegedly with Jones when the shots were fired, according to charging documents.
Orr, investigators believe, had fronted Banks some marijuana to help him out, but Banks failed to pay him back. This apparently made him a target, according to charging documents.
Jones and Orr each face counts of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the shooting.
Both men remain jailed at York County Prison without bail.
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