A Florida jury awarded $779 million to the family of a security guard who was shot at an internet cafe during a failed robbery, siding with allegations in a wrongful death lawsuit that assert the killing was preventable.
In November 2023, Lewis Butler was shot to death during an armed robbery at an internet cafe in Havana, Florida, while attempting to protect a cashier. The Tallahassee Democrat reported that the cashier, DeeAnna Evans, was wounded in the attack but survived her injuries.
The man accused of killing Butler, 21-year-old Kevontae Washington, was convicted by a jury of several charges, including first-degree murder with a firearm, attempted first-degree felony murder with a firearm, and attempted armed robbery with a firearm. Washington is now serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Butler’s family later filed a lawsuit claiming that the security guard might still be alive had the café’s business owners, Fortune MGT 2023 LLC and Manishkumar Patel, taken appropriate precautions when the business was robbed at gunpoint three weeks before the robbery attempt that resulted in Butler’s death…