Despite saying there was sufficient evidence of “a substantial, long-running criminal enterprise” that she, her boyfriend and sister were involved in, a federal judge in Orlando Thursday released the woman who picked up a lamp containing $60,000 in cocaine and is connected to the carjacking and murder of a Homestead woman.
Magistrate Judge Robert Norway agreed with Monicsabel Romero Soto’s attorney that the 28-year-old woman wasn’t a flight risk as she had no previous arrests and had two young children living with her in the Casselberry home she shared with her boyfriend and sister.
Attorney Susan Malove told the judge that Romero Soto “is very concerned about her children” ages 3 months and 10.
READ MORE: Bricks of cocaine found in lamp offer clue into a Homestead woman’s deadly carjacking
The Florida Department of Children and Families removed the children from the home after the arrest of Romero Soto and her live-in boyfriend, Giovany Crespo Hernandez, a person of interest in the Homestead woman’s case. He turned himself to Seminole County law enforcement Monday night; he’s wanted on fentanyl trafficking and marijuana possession with intent to sell charges.