A “Witness or a Suspect;” Offers of Leniency

A “Witness or a Suspect;” Offers of Leniency

Robert C. Phillips
DDA (Ret.)
September, 2016

Fabian Florence Perez was in need of a little extra cash.  So when his friend, Christopher Jasso, suggested that they rob someone randomly off the street, Perez didn’t think it was such a bad idea.  On the evening of September 5, 2003, with Jasso armed with a 25 caliber pistol he got from his girlfriend’s brother, the two hapless thieves set out onto the streets of Indio, California, looking for a likely victim.

Unable to find anyone who didn’t pose an unreasonable challenge, Jasso decided it might be easier if they had the potential victim—someone they knew would be carrying cash—come to them.  Why not just call for a taxi and rob the driver   Basking in their new-found brilliance, the two did just that.  The plan was for Perez to follow Jasso as he robbed a taxi driver and then whisk him to safety once Jasso had completed the dirty deed.  What could go wrong

What, indeed   A video surveillance camera from a nearby convenience store showing Jasso getting into Carlos Cuellar Cardona’s taxi van, for one thing.  Jasso leaving his fingerprints on a newspaper in the taxi, for another.  A witness observing Perez’s vehicle following the taxi for yet another.  And the gun’s original owner, Manual Rivera, later telling police that Perez admitted to him that he was Jasso’s getaway driver, for even another.  But we digress.

The robbery went off as expected, except for Jasso deciding to shoot Cardona twice in the head; an occurrence that Perez later claimed wasn’t part of the plan.  But Perez picked Jasso up after what by then was a homicide in addition to a robbery, with Carlos Cardona bleeding to death in the street, and the two fled the scene.  After splitting the cash, Perez was tasked with getting rid of the gun, which he later ....

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