Prosecutors confirm witness in Pata case alive after ESPN report - ESPN

Florida prosecutors confirmed in a hearing Friday that their key witness in the murder case of a former University of Miami football player is alive and was contacted Thursday by officers where he lives in Kentucky.

ESPN reported Thursday that, despite prosecutors stating July 17 that they tried every effort to locate 81-year-old Paul Conner and had a report from a commercial database he was dead, journalists found Conner alive at his apartment in Louisville.

Conner is the only eyewitness in the case against former Miami football player Rashaun Jones, who is facing second-degree murder charges in the 2006 shooting of teammate Bryan Pata. Jones, who was arrested in 2021, has pleaded not guilty.

Miami assistant state attorney Cristina Diamond told Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Cristina Miranda that, after the ESPN story was published, her lead detective reached out to police in Louisville and asked them to go to Conner's last-known address — where ESPN reporters had found him.

«They were able to make contact with Paul Conner. So at this time, what I can tell the court is that Paul Conner is alive,» Diamond said, adding that she had reviewed the officer's body camera footage. «I think the state needs to do a little bit of further investigation. It appears that he was very confused and is not certain what the case is about.»

When ESPN reporters interviewed Conner on Aug. 25, he said he did not remember details about the case. Miranda had ruled in July that, assuming Conner was dead, the state could present jurors a videotape of prior testimony he gave in 2022 in a bond hearing in the case in lieu of having him testify in person.

If a determination is made that Conner is not competent to testify, she said, «we may still be