Verdict watch: Former FSU, NFL player Travis Rudolph found not guilty of murder and attempted murder

WEST PALM BEACH — Jurors found former Florida State University football player Travis Rudolph not guilty of murder Wednesday, concluding a two-week trial in which Rudolph insisted he killed a man and almost killed three others in order to save his own life. The jury reached its decision after fewer than four hours of deliberation.

Rudolph, who played briefly in the NFL, faced one count of first-degree murder and three counts of attempted murder for the fatal shooting outside his Lake Park home two years ago. The 12-person jury had the option to convict him of lesser offenses, including second-degree murder and manslaughter, but rejected those as well.

Rudolph left the courthouse smiling Wednesday and stopped to pose for a photo with a supporter. A passing driver honked and screamed his name from an open car window.

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The charges against Rudolph stemmed from a late-night incident on April 7, 2021, in which four young men appeared on his doorstep to confront him about a dispute he had with his girlfriend hours earlier. The confrontation turned violent, Rudolph said, and he armed himself with a semi-automatic rifle.

Prosecutors said the men had stopped fighting Rudolph and were trying to flee in a black Cadillac 300 feet away from Rudolph's home when the football player fired 39 rounds into their car, killing Sebastien Jean-Jacques in the passenger seat and wounding Tyler Robinson in the back of the car. Rudolph testified that both men were pointing guns back at him, though investigators said they never found evidence to support his claim.

Rudolph asked Circuit Judge Jeffrey Gillen to dismiss the case last year on the basis of Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, which permits the use of deadly force to protect against death or great bodily harm. Gillen denied his request, leaving jurors to decide whether Rudolph ended Jean-Jacques' life to save his own.

It took them longer to acquit him than the five minutes Rudolph's attorney, Marc Shiner, had suggested it should, although neither man complained as they filed out of the courtroom Wednesday.

"It means everything. I finally got my freedom back," Rudolph said outside of the courthouse. "I can get back to my life."

Hours earlier, he and his family gathered in a circle outside the courtroom to pray. Jurors sent a note to the judge alerting him that they reached a verdict soon after finishing lunch. The gallery became so packed in the minutes that followed — half with people supporting Rudolph, and half hoping he would answer for Jean-Jacques' death — that deputies had to bar latecomers from entering.

Gillen gave the onlookers a stern warning moments before the jury entered: "There will be no violence allowed in this courthouse," he said.

There wasn't. Both Rudolph's supporters and his critics cried at each of the four "not guilty" verdicts, some leaving the courtroom abruptly and shouting their displeasure in the hallway outside. Rudolph's relatives clapped one another on the shoulder and wiped their eyes, returning his grin from the gallery.

Marc Freeman, spokesperson for the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office, said the prosecutors’ thoughts are with the victims and their families in the wake of the trial.

"Although we may disagree with the jury's verdict, it is their job to determine from the facts whether a defendant is guilty or not guilty," he said. "We respect the jury's decision."

Assistant State Attorneys Adrienne Ellis and Richard Clausi Jr. did not stop to speak to reporters on their way out of the courtroom. They, along with Assistant State Attorney Francine Edwards, had urged the jury to convict Rudolph of murder and attempted murder, playing footage from a neighborhood security camera that showed the young men had begun to back away before Rudolph began shooting.

The prosecutors said Rudolph lied about seeing a gun in Jean-Jacques' and Robinson's hands. They called upon a neighbor and Rudolph's own mother who agreed that the only firearm they saw was Rudolph's. Robinson admitted to investigators that he did bring a gun but said he never took it out of his pocket during the confrontation, dumping it in a neighbor's yard after he'd been shot.

Emily Vander-Laan, lead investigator with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, testified that there was no evidence Jean-Jacques had a gun. She conceded that she didn't search for discarded weapons along the path the young men drove after they fled from Rudolph's home and left Robinson bleeding behind them.

Shiner sparred with Vander-Laan about her alleged oversight relentlessly, suggesting that a bulge in Jean-Jacques' pocket could have been a weapon, and that the posture of his "death grip" looked as though he may have died with a gun in his hand.

Shiner accused Vander-Laan of orchestrating a shoddy investigation for the sole purpose of convicting Rudolph, deriding her even after she left the witness stand for not searching for the gun he and his brother swore Jean-Jacques pointed at them. Vander-Laan's response to the accusation was the same every time: She had no reason to believe there was an additional gun.

Keishaun Jones and Chris Lowe, two of the four young men who confronted Rudolph, told her that none in their group was armed. A PBSO K-9 later found the handgun Robinson dumped, which Vander-Laan said she believed Jones and Lowe were unaware of.

Robinson said he dumped the gun after stumbling out of Jones' car, certain that his three friends had been killed in the gunfire. Jones hit the gas, not realizing until the bullet-ridden car died minutes later that they'd left Robinson behind. Shiner suggested that Jones and Lowe took the gun out of Jean-Jacques' hand then and hid it before calling 911.

Prosecutors said the notion of the second gun didn't arise until after Vander-Laan's initial investigation, during trial preparation when Shiner tried to get the murder charge dismissed. Neither Rudolph's brother nor mother mentioned it to investigators, though they testified at trial that the first words out of Rudolph's mouth when he ran back home was that two men had pointed guns at him and his brother.

Shiner maintained Wednesday that Rudolph's story has never changed. He said during closing arguments Tuesday that the only thing his client was guilty of was "not being smart with women." Rudolph admitted during his deposition that he cheated on his then-girlfriend Dominique Jones and antagonized her when she found out on April 6, 2021.

Jones became enraged, Rudolph's Ring doorbell recording her as she smacked him, the pair hurling insults at one another. Jones told her brother, Keishaun, that Rudolph slammed her to the ground during their fight and asked him and Robinson to "please go shoot his s*** up."

The Jones siblings and their friends testified that the text message wasn't serious, and that the men arrived at Rudolph's home seeking answers and an apology — not bloodshed. Shiner maintained that the opposite was true, deeming Rudolph a "hero" for saving his and his brother's lives.

"He's been totally confident, more than any of us actually, that the truth was going to come out," the defense attorney said Wednesday. "His faith in God helped him get through this."

Hannah Phillips is a journalist covering public safety and criminal justice at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach her at hphillips@pbpost.com

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Travis Rudolph trial update: Football player not guilty on all counts