By Jason Geary
The Ledger
TAMPA, Fla. — A former death row inmate from Polk County went on trial Monday to face federal charges of participating in a series of robberies.
Prosecutors accuse Darryl Earl Moody and his co-defendant, Timothy Toraine Jones, of working together to rob three Lake Wales businesses - an IHOP restaurant, a Kangaroo convenience store and a McDonald’s restaurant - from September 2008 to January 2009.
If convicted as charged, Moody, 48, could face up to 20 years in prison.
During opening statements, Assistant United States Attorney Josephine W. Thomas told jurors that Moody and Jones were close friends who called each other “cousin.”
She said they worked as a robbery team, but their scheme came to an end after the Jan. 22, 2009, robbery of an IHOP on State Road 60.
Jones went into the restaurant and stole money at gunpoint, she said.
An officer spotted Jones jogging away from the restaurant to Moody’s cream-colored Cadillac parked at an out-of-business gas station, said Thomas.
Jurors watched video footage Monday of the high-speed chase that followed. At one point, Moody’s car barely avoids hitting another vehicle at an intersection.
Moody and Jones were arrested after abandoning the car at an apartment complex.
Moody told police he didn’t know Jones was going to commit a crime that night and was only giving him a ride, according to arrest reports.
Moody’s lawyer, Frederick Carrington, suggested his client fled because he was afraid of Jones and the police.
He said Jones’ testimony couldn’t be trusted.
“This case rests solely on the tongue of a liar,” he said.
Jones has accepted a plea deal and agreed to testify against Moody but has not yet been sentenced, according to court records.
Moody was sent to Florida’s death row in 1998 after being convicted in the fatal shooting of 32-year-old Scott Mitchell, a citrus grower.
The Florida Supreme Court overturned Moody’s conviction and death sentence in 2003 because of an illegal search.
The next year, his retrial ended with a guilty verdict for third-degree murder. However, he was acquitted of other related charges.
The third-degree murder conviction was later overturned for not being legally valid.
The jury had to find Moody guilty of a lesser felony to convict him of third-degree murder, but he had been acquitted of those charges.
Copyright 2010 Lakeland Ledger Publishing Corporation