Man gets life after turning down plea offer in Daytona drug killing

Jaquez Head should have taken the deal.

Prosecutors had offered the 23-year-old Head a plea deal that would have sent him to prison for 25 years for his part in a drug robbery that left an 18-year-old woman named Rachael Gasparini dead in Daytona Beach in 2020.  With time served and other credits, Head could have been released after 19 years.

Head was not the shooter but he was the “muscle” in the robbery, a prosecutor has said. Head turned the deal down, took his chances at trial and was convicted of first-degree felony murder which carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole. He was also convicted of robbery with a firearm, which also carried up to life in prison.

Head, who is from Georgia, was in court Thursday for sentencing at the S. James Foxman Justice Center in Daytona Beach. Circuit Judge Leah Case sentenced him to the mandatory life in prison for the felony murder.

But the judge said that since the trial she had learned that Head had been placed on probation in 2019 for 10 years for another armed robbery.

“And not even two years later you are committing an armed robbery that ends up with somebody being shot and killed,” Case told Head.

Then Case sentenced Head to another life prison term on the armed robbery to run consecutive to the first life sentence.

Head remained silent as he faced the judge and did not appear to show any reaction. Head did not make any statement during sentencing hearing.

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Assistant State Attorney Andrew Urbanak had asked for the consecutive life terms.

Head’s court-appointed defense attorney, Philip Massa, had asked for a prison sentence on the armed robbery closer to the bottom of the state guidelines, which he said was about 10 years.

A young woman's killing

Head and three accomplices traveled from Georgia on Sept. 18, 2020, to rob Kevin Berry, who was dealing marijuana out of the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, Rachael Gasparini, at the Eagle Point Apartments, 468 Brentwood Drive in Daytona Beach.

Head put the smaller Berry in a chokehold and struggled to control the smaller man, according to prosecutors.

Berry testified at trial he had not seen that one of the men had a gun when he yelled for Gasparini to get his AR-15.

Gasparini stepped out of the bedroom, but she did not have a gun. Another one of the robbers, Jordan Graham, fired at her, Urbanak said during the trial. One bullet grazed Gasparini but another inflicted a fatal wound.

Besides Head and Graham, prosecutors said Armonta Waters, 23, was the “set-up” guy who arranged the buy and Kimba Kimble was the getaway driver; and Graham, 20, was the triggerman who fired the gun that killed Gasparini.

Waters and Graham have also been indicted on charges of first-degree murder and robbery with a firearm.

Kimble, 24, was charged with third-degree felony murder with a firearm. Kimble did not enter the apartment; he remained in the car, according to Urbanak.

The cases of the other three men remain open.

This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Man who turned down plea offer gets life in Daytona Beach killing