JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A man accused of raping and then murdering his pregnant niece, and sexually abusing a second relative, also abused a third teenage relative according to new information revealed by prosecutors Friday.
Assistant State Attorney Dan Skinner told the judge his team recently located a relative of Johnathan Quiles’ ex-wife who said Quiles sexually abused her when she was 15 or 16 years old.
Quiles’ death penalty trial is set to begin Sept. 11 but the late disclosure – just inside the legal 10-day legal limit for such disclosures -- threatened to delay the long-postponed trial.
“We would of course be asking for a continuance if the state intends to call this witness,” Quiles' attorney Christine Michel told the judge. Her co-counsel Robert Davis emphasized that, noting, “We just learned of this judge.”
“I had not seen [the new filing] until it was handed to me here in the courtroom less than 30 minutes ago,” Davis said. “I don't wanna say we were blindsided but [this is very] last minute .. 10 days out from trial.”
Skinner said the witness, now in her 30s, was initially cooperative but has recently been hanging up on prosecutors, so there is no guarantee she would willingly participate. But he said they would attempt to compel her testimony if they can locate her.
Quiles’ ex-wife, who prosecutors only recently located in New York, told them in an interview that he’d molested her young relative while they were married. “Looking at his date of birth now, he would have been 23 or 24 [at the time]. That certainly got our interest,” Skinner told Circuit Judge Anthony Salem. “Most importantly to us, it fits squarely with the situation that we have in our case.”
Skinner said if they were not able to locate the witness for the guilt phase of the trial, they would hope to call her as a rebuttal witness during the penalty phase if one is needed.
Quiles, 33, was indicted in 2019 for first-degree murder and sexual battery for allegedly killing his niece, 16-year-old Iyana Sawyer. The girl was last seen leaving Jacksonville’s Terry Parker High School in December 2018. She was pregnant at the time, with what police believe was Quiles’ child. Her body was never found.
Quiles is charged separately with raping another young relative.
He has pleaded not guilty.
Judge Salem said the news of the new witness made him consider delaying the trial a week, but decided against it. "We'll just cross that bridge when we get there," he said. "I don’t want to push off the trial, and I know you don’t want to push off the trial."
Friday’s hearing also focused on Quiles' legal challenges of Florida’s new death penalty statute, which eliminated jury unanimity, allowing a death verdict on a vote of just 8-4.
The law was passed by the Florida Legislature in reaction to the Nicholas Cruz case, in which the Parkland killer escaped the death penalty in a 9-3 verdict. The bill was signed into law by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April 2023. Quiles’ attorneys contend because he was arrested and charged in 2019, he should be tried and sentenced under the old law.
“Gov. DeSantis passed this law to be nothing more than punitive in its nature, and there is nothing set forward in this law to be retroactive,” Davis said.
Skinner said the change to Florida’s new capital sentencing rule is “not a substantive change to the law, it’s a procedural change.”
Skinner said a "substantive" change would be something like a new law criminalizing previously legal behavior, or a harsher punishment for an existing crime. The new law he says, “in no way changes the end result of life or death.”
“There is no proof [the new law] will greatly increase the likelihood of a death verdict,” Skinner asserted. “You can’t say this will vastly increase death sentences. And if so -- we’ll see.”
The trial is set to begin Sept. 11 and is expected to take two weeks.
