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Twenty years after University of Miami football star Bryan Pata was fatally shot, his loved ones hoped 2026 would bring long-awaited justice and a turning point for their sorrow and frustration.
But instead of a verdict in the murder trial of Pata’s ex-teammate Rashaun Jones, the Pata family got a mistrial in March, followed by eight months of legal bickering over jailhouse snitches, an investigation into the lead detective, allegations of bribery against defense lawyers and efforts to disqualify the judge amid claims of bias.
Pata’s relatives and friends have long blamed 15 years of police missteps and disregard between the killing and Jones’ arrest in 2021. But on the 20th anniversary of Bryan Pata’s Nov. 7, 2006, death, older brother Edwin Pata told ESPN they are now in solidarity with the prosecution and police in pursuit of a conviction as they prepare for the scheduled February retrial.
“It’s taken a toll on our family, especially our mom. … I just want people to get to know who Bryan was, and realize what a bright star that we lost,” Edwin Pata said recently. “Not just a football star, but more importantly a human being that was going to provide good and do good for the world.”
Pata, 22, was the youngest of nine children of Haitian immigrants. He grew up in the Little Haiti section of Miami and was hoping to use football to help bring his family — especially his mom, Jeanette — out of poverty. The 6-4, 280-pound defensive tackle was just a few months away from becoming a high-round NFL draft pick.
Prosecutors allege Jones shot Pata in the parking lot of his apartment complex shortly after practice, fueled by jealousy over a woman Pata was dating and of Pata’s success as a player while Jones faced a suspension over a second failed drug test. No gun was ever found, and there was no witness to the shooting.
Jones has repeatedly denied shooting Pata; his defense team argued the evidence against him is circumstantial, doubted the credibility of a man who said he saw someone who looked like Jones near the scene that night and pointed out there were several other leads police failed to adequately pursue. He has been in custody for more than five years.
Case files showed Jones a suspect years before his arrest
Case files uncovered by ESPN showed police deemed Jones a suspect early in the investigation, but he wasn’t arrested and charged with Pata’s murder until 2021. ESPN reporting showed they had turned up no new substantial evidence in the interim, and police said they had simply taken a fresh look at the case before arresting Jones. In March, a six-member jury failed to reach a unanimous decision, forcing Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda to declare a mistrial.
Edwin Pata, who coached at Miami for six years before taking an assistant coaching job at Florida International University last season, said seeing the Hurricanes now atop the national rankings reminds him of the last time the team had a stretch of seasons in the national championship hunt — in the early 2000s when his brother set his sights on Coral Gables instead of going to another school out of state.
“Everybody knows how Bryan loved Miami,” Edwin Pata said. “He had it tattooed on him. He’s a Cane, through and through. You know, he had his Chevy that he painted orange, Miami orange.”
Since the mistrial, the particulars of Pata’s life and death have taken a back seat to multiple issues that have come up regarding evidence, alleged attorney behavior and what many legal observers have said in interviews with ESPN is an over-the-top discord among the attorneys and with Judge Miranda.
Edwin Pata blamed the defense team for what he called “theatrics and distractions” that have delayed the case and injecting speculation into media coverage.
On Sept. 9, Jones’ attorneys filed their fourth request to disqualify Miranda after alleging that she was biased against the defense. Miranda rejected the motion the following day, writing that it was “legally insufficient.” The defense appealed to the Florida 3rd District Court of Appeals. That appeal, along with a similar one filed in June, is pending.
Last month, the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in Miami took the unprecedented step of filing an amicus brief with the appeals court in support of the request to have Miranda removed.
FACDL president Aaron Wayt said that statewide, “We’re not aware of our organization ever needing to weigh in at this level regarding the removal of a judge.”
Daniel Tibbitt, chairman of the Miami chapter’s amicus committee, said: “It was something that was brought to us where this is concrete evidence of a judge in Miami that is not maintaining neutrality and this is something that we, as an organization, need to stand up for.”
The brief points to hearings in August and September in which Miranda is said to have made statements that were untrue and showed bias against the defense attorneys. For example, the brief says, Miranda incorrectly said it was inappropriate for defense attorneys to question and record a particular witness without notifying prosecutors.
Attorneys group says judge ‘showed fixed bias and prejudice’
Miranda “showed fixed bias and prejudice by issuing threats to defense counsel, who had done nothing wrong,” the brief states. When Jones’ attorneys heard discussion of allegations of misconduct, they brought on an attorney to represent them, it states. In response, Miranda said someone would seek counsel only “in a situation where there might be some inappropriateness.”
“The judge said, ‘That gives me as a judge the belief that you did something wrong because why would you need an attorney if you didn’t do something wrong?'” Tibbitt said. “She said that. On the record. That is a fundamental principle that she got wrong.”
The brief cites other issues, including a hearing that ended with Miranda threatening to have the bailiff remove one of the defense attorneys from the courtroom if she didn’t stop speaking.
In the appellate proceedings, the actions by Miranda — as an employee of the state — are represented by the Florida Office of Attorney General, which has not yet filed a response to the disqualification request. A spokesperson also did not respond to a request for comment.
There have been many tense moments between the defense attorneys and the judge and between the defense and prosecutors. In August, Miranda issued a gag order on attorneys on both sides and spoke of her concerns about media coverage, saying the court would be working on changing its rules for reporters.
Also this summer, defense attorneys filed a motion stating that lead Miami-Dade Sheriff’s detective Juan Segovia was using an anonymous Instagram account to make derogatory comments about Jones and a witness during the trial. The sheriff’s office opened an internal affairs investigation but before it closed, Miranda ruled that such actions — regardless of whether Segovia was behind the account — would not have unduly influenced the jury and did not show bias.
Dispute over jailhouse informant
Attorneys also sparred over a former cellmate of Jones who has said in a deposition and an interview with ESPN that Jones confessed to him of having killed Pata. The issue was whether George Jones, the cellmate who was with Jones after his arrest in August 2021, had been promised by a former prosecutor that his testimony could earn a reduced federal prison sentence.
George Jones, who is not related to the defendant, did not testify in the first trial, but prosecutors have listed him as a witness for the retrial.
In July, George Jones told law enforcement officers that a defense attorney tried to pay him $15,000 if he refused to testify in the trial of Rashaun Jones. That attorney wasn’t part of Jones’ defense team but had been in communication with lead attorney Sara Alvarez, and he was present when George Jones first gave his statement about the alleged confession in 2022. Both attorneys have denied any wrongdoing, and neither has been charged with a crime nor does the Florida Bar have any cases pertaining to them or this issue. Just a few weeks later, Spencer Bradley, a prior cellmate of George Jones, told a defense investigator that George Jones told him he had lied about the bribery allegation and about the alleged confession, saying he, “expressed remorse for lying about a young Black man.” In conversations with ESPN, George Jones has said he stands by his statement about the confession and denies any such conversation with Bradley. A spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office said the agency was investigating the bribery claims and said he had no further information.
Edwin Pata said he didn’t know the specifics of George Jones and his possible testimony before the first trial, and he declined to discuss him. He said he wants to keep the focus on his brother.
“Somebody who did all the things right. Go to college, went through some adversity, earned a football scholarship, earned his way to playing at the University of Miami, earned a way to be a starter … was getting ready to get drafted, loved this community,” he said. “All that’s getting drowned out because we got people who are more worried about TV ratings and clicks on social media.”
Had Bryan Pata lived, his brother said he would likely be retired from the NFL by now. (Only one of his teammates, Baltimore Ravens defensive end Calais Campbell, is still in the league.) “I’m sure he would have had a couple of kids. He wanted a big family. He would still be doing things with my mom and his siblings. He would still be the centerpiece of our family,” Edwin Pata said. “Probably bald like me now, too. I could see him in Little Haiti, North Miami, working and doing football camps for the youth. I could see him giving back.”
ESPN’s Scott Frankel contributed to this report.
