MIAMI _ Prosecutors, admitting the weakness of the mostly circumstantial evidence against a Miami-area teenager accused of the 2014 murder of a rabbi from New York, said Tuesday they were dropping the charges.
"Unfortunately, at this time, the trial team does not believe it can prove (the defendant's) guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," prosecutors wrote in a closeout memo filed in circuit court to drop the murder charge against Deandre Charles, who was 14 at time of the killing.
Charles was accused of gunning down Rabbi Joseph Raksin in August 2014. Raksin, an Orthodox rabbi who was visiting from Brooklyn, was shot as he walked to a Northeast Miami-Dade synagogue for Saturday services.
A witness said he saw two men fleeing the scene of the murder, but Charles was the only one ever charged. The memo says the investigation is open.
The decision to drop the charges seems certain to roil the Orthodox Jewish community of Northeast Miami-Dade, which was stunned by the slaying.
"I'm still in shock," said Yona Lunger, an activist in the Orthodox community. "I am trying to find out the details as to why they dropped the case."
But Adam Goodman, one of Charles' attorneys, said the decision _ announced by surprise late Tuesday afternoon _ was inevitable: "These problems with the evidence have been there all along."
Charles, who wasn't arrested until nearly 16 months after the killing, has maintained he was at home asleep when the shooting took place.
But police said his DNA was found on the murder weapon and in the getaway car, and cellphone records showed he was near the crime scene. And, they said, an eyewitness who saw two men running from the area where Raksin was killed identified Charles in a photo lineup.
But the witness saw the men fleeing from 100 feet away, and a crude sketch he made of the man he identified as Charles barely resembled him.
And as prosecutors conceded in their closeout memo, the other evidence began to steadily erode:
DNA samples found on the gun were only about 20 times more likely to be Charles' rather than another person.
New evidence showed that gang members stored guns at Charles' home.
Phone records verified Charles' claim that his brother had his cellphone that day.
The pistol that killed Raksin was used in a robbery seven miles from the murder scene the day before, and police had no evidence connecting Charles to that robbery.
"The trial team does not believe the state can prove the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt," the memo said. "The degradation of the evidence at hand has made this an inescapable determination."
Raksin's family could not be reached for comment Tuesday. His death shook the Northeast Miami-Dade community, which has more than 10 synagogues along a mile-stretch.
