Four years ago, Janepsy Carballo gunned down a suspect in the killing of her husband and the wounding of her toddler son.
Did she lure the man there, in cold blood, to shoot him in the back? Or was she defending herself when she killed Ilan Nissim in May 2008?
A Miami-Dade judge on Tuesday will consider whether Carballo, 34, acted in self-defense and should be immune from prosecution.
Tuesday’s hearing in which Carballo is expected to testify is being held under Florida’s controversial Stand Your Ground law.
The 2005 statute eliminated a citizen’s duty to retreat when using lethal force to meet a threat of harm. The law also allowed judges greater leeway to dismiss a charge based on a self-defense claim.
The law came under scrutiny earlier this year when police initially declined to charge a self-proclaimed neighborhood watchman in the killing of an unarmed teen in Sanford. The gunman, George Zimmerman, was charged with murdering Trayvon Martin and is awaiting trial.
Mesa’s husband, Orlando Mesa, 37, was gunned down April 20, 2008, by black-clad men in a white Toyota just outside their North Miami house. His toddler, Noah, 20 months old, survived with wounds to his arm and leg.
Mesa, who family members said was a mechanic, was cuffed in March after detectives found him moving suspicious packages in a rented Bentley. They discovered two large plastic bags of marijuana. He served two days in jail on a possession charge.
As police arrested him, detectives pulled over Carballo and found $16,000 stuffed in a green shoe box inside her purse. She claimed the money was to make a down payment on a house. Police believed it was dope money.
Most of the money was later returned when Carballo proved it had been won in the lottery, according to the North Miami city attorney’s office.
After Mesa’s murder, according to an arrest warrant, Carballo bought a six-shot revolver, then called Nissim to ask him to bring money he owed her.
At the house, Carballo shot Nissim six times in the back, the warrant said. An autopsy determined that Nissim “was either lying on the ground or was bent very far over when he was shot,” the warrant said.
She called 911 and claimed she fired in self-defense when Nissim allegedly showed up at the house unexpectedly.
Carballo was not arrested until 2010, after she allegedly told an undercover DEA informant that she planned the shooting.
“She said she wanted ‘an eye for an eye’ and that she wanted [Nissim’s] daughter ‘to grow up without a father, just like my son,’ ” the warrant said.
Judge Bloom is no stranger to Stand Your Ground cases in the limelight.
In August, Bloom granted immunity to a Little Havana man who stabbed his brother to death during a violent brawl.
More controversially in March, Bloom cleared Greyston Garcia, who chased down a thief who had broken into his truck and stolen his radio in Little Havana in January 2011. With one fatal knife thrust to the chest, Garcia felled the car thief.
Bloom ruled that Garcia acted in self-defense because the thief swung a bag filled with heavy car radios, and a medical examiner testified that “a 4-6 pound bag of metal being swung at one’s head would lead to serious bodily injury or death,’’ her order said.
In September, Bloom denied a self-defense claim to a Santeria godfather who killed one of his followers during an argument.
North Miami widow in suspect’s killing claiming self-defense in court
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North Miami widow in suspect’s killing claiming self-defense in court
