FORT LAUDERDALE, FLA. (WSVN) - The mother of a young man convicted of killing a Hollywood Police officer in 2021 provided emotional testimony in court as she waits to learn whether her son will face life in prison or the death penalty.
In a video testimony shown in court on Wednesday, Ingrid Villanueva Pineda described her life being trafficked as a child by the man who would eventually become the father of her son, Jason Banegas. She said she was a teenager when she gave birth to her son despite the demands of his father.
“I didn’t want to abort my child. That was everything to me,” she said.
Villanueva Pineda described Banegas’s tumultuous childhood, filled with ups and downs. She said stealing was part of growing up in his Miami neighborhood and that depression had already set in before he witnessed his best friend get shot and killed in front of him.
“He’d cry for nothing, he’d cry for anything and everything. ‘What’s wrong with your son?'” the mother said in the video testimony.
After she described a tumultuous childhood, Villanueva Pineda asked the presiding judge and the jury to save her son.
Following her testimony, Xinnia Zapata, a family friend who took the stand while wearing a cotton mask, told similar stories of dysfunctional adults, violence, and poverty.
“I’ve seen what his mother and other adults have done to him,” she said through an interpreter. “But everybody shut the door on him, and I know that he is not the boy that is sitting over there.”
Banegas was just 18 years old when he shot and killed Hollywood Police Officer Yandy Chirino in the Emerald Hills neighborhood on Oct. 17, 2021.
Chirino was responding to possible burglary calls when he got into a scuffle with Banegas, who is now 23. Chirino suffered two gunshot wounds and was taken to the hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries.
He has since pleaded guilty to this charge, and it’s up to the jury to decide whether or not he should be sentenced to life in prison without parole or if he should die by lethal injection.
“My son isn’t perfect, and I beg you to spare his life. He has psychological problems, and I ask for forgiveness on behalf of my son,” said Villanueva Pineda in Spanish. “Please don’t take my son’s life. Give him another chance, because what happened was an accident. My son has never been inhuman. He has always been a very humble person, and I ask the judge to please spare his life.”
Additional members of Banegas’ family and loved ones are expected to take the stand as they try to convince the presiding jury to recommend life in prison.
Chirino’s family also provided emotional impact statements in recent days.
If the jury recommends death, it would have to be eight of the 12 jurors, and only then can the judge sentence him to death in the state of Florida.
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