(As originally published with additional photos, Thu, November 2nd 2023, 9:51 PM EDT)
TAMPA, Fla. (TND) — Three men in Florida have been indicted for crimes in connection with the killing of a 17-year-old sexual assault victim. One’s mother is also facing charges.
The U.S. Attorney’s office reported that in February, the teenager and her mother went to the Hernando County Sheriff’s Office, north of Tampa, to report 36-year-old Lenard White.
Then, the feds said, White offered to pay Sheldon Robinson and Keshawn Woods $10,000 to murder the girl so she couldn’t press charges.
Robinson, 21, and Woods, 22, got to work the very next day.
Prosecutors said they went to the home of the victim and her mother, and knocked on the door.
When someone answered it, Robinson and Woods started firing. The girl was shot four times and killed, and her mother was wounded but survived.
The feds started investigating the murder and claim White, Robinson, and Woods disposed of evidence, tampered with witnesses, obstructed justice, and made false statements to law enforcement.
The three — with criminal histories — were charged with conspiracy to commit murder for hire, murder for hire, discharge of a firearm during violence that caused death, and discharge of a firearm in furtherance of a violent crime.
White and Robinson were also charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, witness tampering, and obstruction of justice.
And Robinson’s 44-year-old mother, Janet Williams, has been charged with multiple counts of making false statements to federal agents.
Williams is the only one not behind bars. She was released on conditions including home detention.
Those were federal charges. The three men have also faced state charges in Hernando County.
White has been booked at least five times, starting with fleeing and eluding in 2010 and 2013, also resisting an officer in 2013. Then, in 2014, there was homicide, possession of a weapon, and a probation violation.
On the day after the killings, he was booked for sexual assault and a week later for sexual assault and resisting an officer.
Robinson faced a slew of charges in 2020: two counts of obstructing an investigation, two counts of resisting, plus a weapons offense, larceny, battery, interfering with custody, and sheltering an unmarried minor without consent.
Then, in February, cocaine trafficking and possession of a weapon.
As for Woods, last year, he was booked for a probation violation that wasn’t specified, and this past February for weapons possession, marijuana possession, a prescription drug violation, and possession of drug paraphernalia.
