SEMINOLE COUNTY, Fla. – A man facing federal charges in connection to a deadly April 2024 carjacking case has signed a plea agreement, court documents obtained by News 6 show.
A hearing for Kevin Ocasio Justiniano is scheduled for Wednesday, Jan. 15, according to online records.
Federal investigators believe he was driving a green Acura that was seen following Katherine Aguasvivas in Winter Springs in April. She was later found dead in a burning car in Osceola County.
[RELATED: Here are the people involved in the brazen Winter Springs carjacking, murder case]
Witnesses took video of the Acura, and Aguasvivas’s white Dodge Durango, as they were stopped at East Lake Drive and Tuskawilla Road. In the video, an armed man can be seen approaching Aguasvivas’s vehicle and then getting into the backseat before both drive off.
According to court documents, Aguasvivas drove four hours from Homestead to pick up $170,000 in drug proceeds to be “laundered as part of an ongoing drug money laundering operation.”
Investigators say she was in communication with Giovany Crespo Hernandez and on the way to meet him.
The documents state while Crespo Herandez met with Aguasvivas, Jordanish Torres Garcia and Kevin Ocasio Justiniano were waiting for her in the neighborhood.
Authorities say Crespo Hernandez and Torres Garcia exchanged a series of phone calls shortly before witnesses spotted the green Acura bumping her car in Winter Springs. The video captured in broad daylight shows the gunman, who investigators believe to be Torres Garcia, exit the Acura in a ski mask and walk up to Aguasvivas with an AR-15 rifle. He gets into her backseat and both cars make a u-tun and drive away.
Investigators believe Aguasvivas was ordered at gunpoint to drive to Osceola County where the victim’s burned-out vehicle was later found at a construction site on Boggy Creek Road. Twelve spent cartridges were found on the ground.
According to court documents, Derreck Rodriguez Bonilla delivered a firearm to the site of the murder.
“Everyone who’s watched this has known it’s about drugs and money,” Sheriff Dennia Lemma told reporters in April. “Clearly, there’s a drug and money nexus here.”
Law enforcement tied Jordanish Torres to the green Acura spotted in the video, saying he was wearing the same hoodie in his Facebook profile picture as the man captured on camera.
The Acura was later recovered in an apartment complex. Detectives determined the same car and firearm used in the kidnapping and killing was also connected to the murder of a tow truck driver in Orange County the day before the carjacking, according to the sheriff.
After the robbery, federal investigators say Ocasio Justiniano and Torres Garcia split up and counted the $170,000 from Aguasvivas, and Ocasio Justiniano received $60,000 from the robbery.
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Authorities have made several other arrests as they’ve worked to link the suspects and discover their motives in what has become an extensive investigation. Crespo Hernandez’s girlfriend, Monicsabel Romero Soto, was arrested after she picked up a package of cocaine that had been mailed to St. Cloud from Puerto Rico.
News 6 learned through court documents that three more suspects, Sonic Torres, Anneliz Colon De Jesus, and Cesar Augusto Silva Fernandez, are now also facing federal charges.
Details about their connection to the crime have not been publicly released, but an arrest affidavit obtained by News 6 unrelated to the carjacking shows Silva Fernandez and Colon De Jesus were in a car with Rodriguez Bonilla two weeks after the kidnapping and killing.
An affidavit for Silva Fernandez says they were approached by Orlando police while parked in a handicap space without a placard.
Officers searched the vehicle and found a semi-automatic pistol and a plastic bag with a white powdery substance that tested positive for cocaine.
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