Federal prosecutors will not seek the death penalty against any of the defendants in last year’s botched robbery of a Mount Vernon cannabis warehouse in which one employee and one robber were fatally shot.
In a Sept. 22 letter to U.S. District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains, prosecutors wrote that officials at the U.S. Department of Justice had decided Moises Encarnacion would not face the death penalty.
He is charged with murder through the use of a firearm and was the last of the defendants in the case to be considered for capital punishment by DOJ officials in Washington.
What happened during the March 19, 2024 shooting?
The robbery occurred early March 19, 2024, at the South Fifth Avenue warehouse where illegal cannabis products were stored and sold. More than 10 armed men exited a van and ordered employees who were helping customers load their cars back into the warehouse.
Once inside, a shooting broke out.
Employee Salem Rabadi and suspect Romano Acosta were fatally shot and the rest of the robbers fled.
Several were caught the following night when the FBI and Mount Vernon police used Acosta’s identity to trace them back to a Bronx housing project.
Out of 12 suspects charged, at least four have pleaded guilty
Encarnacion, known as “Bendiciones”, is among 12 charged in the case. At least four — Ilario Contreras, Marco Tulio Fernandez-Rodriguez, Nazario Rolon and Iberson Jimenez — have pleaded guilty to robbery conspiracy and are awaiting sentencing.
The others are Ryan Rivera, Cristian Meran, Jhoan Diaz-Feliz, Jherpi Diaz-Feliz, Victor Jimenez, Joseph Perez and Juan Sanchez.
Encarnacion’s lawyer did not respond to a request for comment.
AG Pam Bondi ordered to step up use of capital punishment
The DOJ decisions affirm the “no-seek” determinations made last year under previous Attorney General Merrick Garland. All of Garland’s no-seek decisions nationwide were reconsidered after Attorney General Pam Bondi took office following President Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order to step up use of the death penalty in federal cases.
In six cases involving nine defendants across the country, Bondi has taken the unprecedented step of reversing no-seek decisions. But the Department of Justice has faced pushback in most of the cases from judges who have ruled that the original decision not to seek the death penalty should stand. A judge’s decision is still pending in two of the cases and the government has appealed at least one of the denials.
Garland instituted a moratorium on federal executions and authorized seeking the death penalty only once — against Payton Gendron in the mass shooting that left 10 dead at a Buffalo supermarket.
In December before leaving office, President Joe Biden commuted the death sentences of 37 of 40 federal death row inmates to life in prison. Last week, Bondi said the 37 would soon be sent to the ADX Florence “supermax” prison in Colorado and eight were sent there this week. Also last week, Trump ordered Bondi and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro to pursue capital punishment in eligible cases in the District of Columbia, where the death penalty has been abolished for more than 40 years.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: DOJ rules out death penalty for defendants in fatal Mount Vernon cannabis warehouse heist
Reporting by Jonathan Bandler, Rockland/Westchester Journal News / Rockland/Westchester Journal News
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