A 60-year-old Miami-Dade man is facing multiple felony charges after deputies say he pointed a gun at his neighbor’s head inside a parking garage and made off with roughly $113,000 in gold jewelry, including a religious ring and Cuban-link chains that carried deep personal meaning for the victim. Jacob Johnson was arrested Thursday and remains held at a Miami-Dade correctional facility as investigators piece together a case built on surveillance video, a photo lineup identification, and what deputies say was his own admission.
According to WPLG Local 10, deputies were called to an apartment building near the 3100 block of Northwest 77th Street around 7:15 p.m. on July 31 after the victim reported that a man had gotten into his vehicle, pointed a gun at his head, and demanded his valuables in the Westgate area of Miami-Dade County. The victim told deputies Johnson pressed a two-tone revolver with a silver frame and black grip against his head before fleeing on foot toward a nearby parking garage. He surrendered two 10-karat yellow gold Cuban-link bracelets, a 10-karat yellow gold Cuban-link chain taken from around his neck, and a yellow gold ring depicting Our Lady of Charity.
The victim believed Johnson lived in the same building, and it turns out he was right. Building surveillance footage reportedly showed Johnson leaving his third-floor apartment just before 7 p.m., using a key fob to get through a secured door, and returning to his apartment shortly after the robbery was reported — footage that, per the same account, corroborated the victim’s version of events. The victim also recorded video of Johnson running away, and apartment management staff later recognized him in the images and video.
Identification and a Reported Admission
Investigators identified Johnson as a person of interest, and the victim later picked him out of a photographic lineup as the man who robbed him, the station’s report states. Deputies executed a search warrant at Johnson’s home around 6:55 a.m. Thursday, and according to the report, Johnson admitted to being involved in the robbery, though he claimed the handgun he displayed was actually a fictitious replica cap gun. He was taken into custody without incident and transported to Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office headquarters before being booked into the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, a 1,300-bed intake facility operated by Miami-Dade’s corrections department…