Feb 15, 2007 5:06 pm US/Eastern
Murdered Woman's Boyfriend Will Stay In Custody
by Kathryn Brown
BALTIMORE (WJZ) ―
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A judge overturned a ruling that would have set drug suspect Jermarl Jones free. (WJZ)
CBS
On Thursday, a Baltimore judge overturned a ruling that would have freed a drug suspect whose girlfriend was recently murdered and found dead in the trunk of her own car.
As
WJZ's Kathryn Brown reports, Jermarl Jones was back in court more than a week after a judge ruled he should be free to go on charges he violated his release agreement in a pending drug case.
Federal prosecutors probing the death of 25-year-old Sintia Mesa, have not called Jones a suspect in her murder, but they immediately appealed the ruling that would have let Jones go free.
Investigators claimed that even though Jones is not considered a suspect he is a "person of interest."
Now, Jones will remain in custody until his trial in the drug case, which is currently scheduled for June.
In the days following the discovery of Mesa's naked and asphyxiated body stuffed in the trunk of her car, Jones dropped off the radar.
A manhunt then took place and after two days, Jones turned himself in to police. Investigators have called Mesa's unsolved murder a case with "all the markings of a drug killing."
Federal agents had been tracking Mesa during the weeks leading up to her death. The surveillance was in relation to a massive heroin case against Jones.
"Mr. Jones was part of an on-going investigation based on his association with other individuals in a drug trafficking scheme," said special agent Clare Weber.
Jones' attorney said his client had nothing to do with Mesa's death and that Jones was in New York at the time of Mesa's killing.
"She and he had a four and a half year relationship," said Stanley Needleman--Jones' attorney. "There's nothing to suggest anything was wrong with their relationship and I just think the government is using it as a vehicle to try and seek his detention."
Rod Rosenstein from the U.S. attorney's office in Baltimore responded by saying, "We sought detention initially and we continue to believe he ought to be detained."
(© MMVII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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