Concluding a week-long trial Friday, a jury found Randy Alexandre, one of three men involved in a shooting into the house where a pregnant woman was living in January 2021, guilty of attempted manslaughter and shooting into a building. He faces up to 20 years in prison when sentenced on Feb. 8.
Alexander was arrested following the January 28, 2021 shooting spree on Kalamazoo Trail, along with Paul “Paulo” Pajotte and Jamey “JuJu” Bennett.
Pajotte, now 26, pleaded out and was sentenced to five years in prison last July, followed by 5 years on probation. Bennett had faced a second-degree felony charge for firing into a house. He was killed on Feb. 5 in a shooting at an outdoors party in Palm Coast in an incident authorities have not connected to the earlier shooting. His assailant, Da’Mari Barnes, was 15, and is awaiting trial on a manslaughter charge.
In Alexandre’s case, attempted manslaughter is a significantly lesser verdict than the attempted second degree murder conviction Assistant State Attorney Melissa Clark was seeking. It lowers Alexandre’s exposure, from a first degree felony to a third degree felony, when Circuit Judge Terence Perkins sentences him.
The attempted second degree murder charge carried a 30-year prison sentence with a mandatory minimum of 20 years. The attempted manslaughter charge is punishable by up to five years in prison. There was some confusion as to what penalty the prosecution would seek from that charge, because a gun was involved. But the State Attorney’s Office today confirmed that it would seek sentencing on that charge as a third degree felony.
However, Alexandre’s fortune on that count did not carry over to the first count: the jury also found him guilty of shooting at or into a building, a second degree felony punishable by a maximum of 15 years. That’s why he still faces a potential of 20 years in prison. When Alexandre was first arrested, he only faced that one charge. The State Attorney’s Office added the attempted second degree charge five months later.
It is unlikely that the punishment will be near 20 years, and there is no mandatory minimum sentence. Alexandre was 21 at the time of the crime. He had no adult record. He has not had any subsequent run-ins with law enforcement since. He faced some charges in Miami, where he is from, in 2019. The charges were dropped.
The incident itself, according to the investigation, which is detailed in a 16-page arrest affidavit, originated in a dispute involving Bennett and Terrance Broome, who lived at the Kalamazoo Trail house that eventually got shot up: Bennett was allegedly looking to fight Broome. Bennett was part of a group of five men who devised a plan to pull off the confrontation, among them Alexandre. They found out that Broome was in Daytona Beach, but didn’t want to go there to fight. According to some of those involved, Alexandre at one point said: “I didn’t come all this way for nothing. We are shooting up the house.” So they did, with Pajote, Alexandre and Bennett each having a weapon and each firing at the house.
Inside, the woman who was pregnant was on the phone with her cousin when the bullets flew. She was not hurt.
Alexandre’s bond was revoked after the jury verdict. He had been out on $150,000 bond.
Jimbo99 says
He & Connor can share accommodations.
The Geode says
A better accommodation would be between him and Bennett…
palmcoaster says
I sure believe that these shooters need jail but what I am wondering is why looks like some get a slap in the wrist depending on race?: “The incident was reminiscent of a similar incident at a European Village bar in march 2014, when a patron, Daniel Noble, got into an argument with other patrons, went home, changed into fatigues, retrieved an Uzi-stile assault weapon and and a pair of knives, and returned, brandishing the firearm at the people he’d argued with before they subdued him. He managed to fire two shots, not hitting anyone. Noble, a veteran, had faced 35 years in prison. He was sentenced to seven years on probation. His probation was terminated on Feb. 2, 2021”. Good question for our DA and his prosecutors and hope at sentencing fair justice for all will prevail.