Former University of Miami football player Rashaun Jones is set to appear in court on Tuesday, Feb. 17, for the decades-old murder of his former teammate Bryan Pata.
Pata, a 22-year-old Hurricanes defensive lineman and Miami Central High School alumni, was expected to be a top NFL draft pick. But, on Nov. 7, 2006, Pata was shot in the back of the head outside his home at the Colony Apartments in Kendall after football practice.
Pata was pronounced dead at 7:07 p.m. and was buried in the beige suit he had picked out for his draft party.
Fifteen years after Pata’s death, Jones was arrested on a second-degree murder charge. The arrest followed an ESPN investigation that linked Jones to the murder.
Pretrial hearings began earlier this month on Feb. 2 with jury selection on Feb. 9. During the first pretrial hearing, Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda encouraged Jones to accept a 15-year plea deal that included the time he had already served. Jones declined to take the plea deal, maintaining his innocence.
“Deep down in my heart, I know I’m innocent,” Jones said. “Dismissal would be the only thing I am willing to accept.”
During pretrial hearings, Jones’ defense attorneys also argued that the state failed to provide certain case documents that had previously been released to ESPN. Among the documents was a 2007 polygraph report in which inmate Bernard Brinson claimed another prisoner admitted to be the hitman hired to kill Pata.
However, after the prosecutors located the report, Judge Miranda barred the defense from using it as evidence since polygraphs are inadmissible in court.
If convicted of murder, Jones faces a potential life sentence.
Police records indicate that Jones and Pata had frequent conflicts, including a dispute over a woman who had previously been involved with Jones before later dating and living with Pata. Along with verbal altercations and a locker room fistfight, Pata’s brother also reported that Jones had threatened to shoot Pata.
With no security cameras capturing the killing or forensic evidence linking Jones to the crime, the case relies on circumstantial evidence.
On the night of the murder, Jones was the only player absent from a mandatory football meeting. He had been suspended after a third failed drug test but was still expected to attend. Jones said he stayed home that night but cellphone records placed him near the murder scene of the Colony Apartments during the shooting. Neighbors also reported hearing loud arguing followed by gun shots.
Key witness Paul Conner, a former UM professor and Colony Apartments resident, claimed he saw Jones fleeing the scene of the murder. Connor identified Jones in police photo lineups in both 2006 and 2022. In the summer of 2025, prosecutors had mistakenly claimed that Conner was deceased after he did not answer the door for a welfare check, but ESPN reporters found him alive on Sept. 18, 2025.
Judge Miranda found Conner, now 81 years old, mentally unfit to testify at trial, but she will allow the prosecutors to play his recorded testimony.
With jury selection and pretrial hearings complete, the trial is scheduled to continue for the next two weeks. The first hearing is set for Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. at the Richard E. Gerstein Justice Building.