MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, Fla. — A 30-year-old man faced charges on Thursday in Miami-Dade County over the 2019 murder-for-hire hit of a reality TV car customization guru, records show.
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According to an arrest warrant, a Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office detective reported surveillance videos show Julian Jimenez at the crime scene and his getaway car after the shooting on Aug. 27, 2019, in Kendale Lakes.
A surveillance video shows Jimenez wearing a mask and gloves and holding a .40 caliber gun, after Alex Vega pulled into his home’s driveway along Southwest 118 Avenue, near Killian Parkway, according to the warrant.
Jimenez, then 23, fired, and deputies found Vega, then 50, suffering from wounds to his back, according to the arrest warrant. Fire rescue personnel took Vega to the Kendall Regional Medical Center, which now operates as HCA Florida Kendall Hospital, records show.
More than 15 years ago, Vega and Rolando Ramirez had a conflict over debt, according to federal prosecutors who worked in a related case.
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In 2012, Ramirez, the owner of the Doral Collision Center, took over Vega’s Exclusive Motoring Worldwide in Doral as part of a settlement, according to prosecutors.
Ramirez’s friend Rasheed Ali, a former University of Miami football player, helped to arrange the murder for hire plot in 2018, according to prosecutors.
Ali, also known as “Fresh,” and his friend, Tamrat Mason, better known as reggae artist “Shifta,” recruited Jaime Serrano, a “marijuana distributor” with an outstanding debt, according to prosecutors.
On Aug. 21, 2019, Serrano flew with Jimenez from New York to Miami and rented a 2018 Nissan Rogue from Enterprise Rental Car, according to deputies.
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A few minutes after Vega was wounded on Aug. 27, 2019, surveillance video shows Jimenez walking southbound on Southwest 117 Avenue and “towards a bus stop that contained a garbage can where the firearm was later located,” according to the warrant.
Another surveillance video shows the Nissan Rogue, “about five minutes later, at the Bird Road toll plaza on the northbound Florida Turnpike,” according to the warrant, which didn’t mention how much Jimenez was allegedly paid.
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“Law enforcement located a mask and a pair of gloves,” a deputy wrote, according to the warrant.
Jimenez, who is from the Bronx, complied with a warrant to provide his DNA to detectives on June 26, 2022, and the MDSO Forensic Services Bureau laboratory analyzed it, according to the warrant.
Miami-Dade County corrections booked Jimenez shortly before 11:40 p.m. on Wednesday at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, according to inmate records.
Jimenez had two warrant cases: One was for attempted murder with a deadly weapon and conspiracy to commit murder with a deadly weapon, and the other was a hold for another agency, records show.
Read a segment from the warrant
Local 10 News Assignment Desk Editor Mercedes Cevallos contributed to this report.
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