Third boy charged as an adult in 12-year-old’s rape will stay locked up: judge

Crime admin June 26, 2026 0 Comments

Third boy charged as an adult in 12-year-old’s rape will stay locked up: judge

The third boy charged as an adult in the rape of a 12-year-old girl in Overtown will stay in jail as he awaits his trial, a judge ruled Friday.

Xavier Tyson, 15, fidgeted with his hands as Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Richard Hersch issued his ruling. Prosecutors sought to keep Tyson in jail, citing the gravity of the charges.

“I’m not comfortable with the degree of culpability,” the judge said. “He’s remaining detained.”

Tyson had an Arthur hearing, which allows judges to consider setting bonds for defendants charged with crimes that aren’t normally eligible for bail. In such a hearing, the state has to establish that “proof is evident and the presumption great” that the accused person is guilty. That’s a high burden — often considered even greater than proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Tyson, Nelson Nuñez, 14, and Jusiah Jones, 13, are charged with sexual battery and false imprisonment in connection to the June 18, 2025, rape. Their cases are being handled in adult court; the three boys have pleaded not guilty.

Tyson, who surrendered himself to authorities, was arrested on June 4, months after Nuñez and Jones were handcuffed. In March, Jones was released from jail on total lockdown house arrest, meaning he is monitored around the clock by an ankle monitor. Nuñez and Tyson are being held at the Metro West Detention Center.

READ MORE: One of the boys charged in 12-year-old’s rape can bond out of jail, judge rules

During the hearing, attorney Marlene Montaner, who is representing Tyson, pointed out that there are “multiple variations” about what happened the night of the sexual assault. The three boys gave statements with conflicting details, the attorney said.

“In this case, all we have is the word of three teenagers who lied in their interviews,” Montaner said. “… We have unreliable narrating because the details don’t match up.”

But Tyson, prosecutor Arvind Singh said, was the reason the sexual assault took place.

“Tyson is at the same level as culpability as Nelson Nuñez,” Singh said. “He was the one who encouraged Nelson Nuñez to commit sexual battery.”

Tyson’s aunt, Amadonne Gabriel, addressed the court during the hearing. At the time of the incident, Tyson was living with his grandmother in Miami, but Gabriel said he moved to live with her in the Orlando area. Tyson’s mother, she said, died when he was 4 months old.

Gabriel said she was shocked by the allegations against Tyson. She said her nephew is a respectful and obedient child who enjoys playing with his cousins.

“He would never do anything like that,” Gabriel said.

Tyson, she said, received specialized instruction in school and reads at a third-grade level. Gabriel said she noticed Tyson is unlike other children of his same age; she said she has to constantly repeat things for him to understand. Tyson shook his head and nodded as his aunt spoke.

“He’s not an average 15-year-old,” Gabriel said. “His mind is basically on games, like kids.”

A harrowing assault

The rape happened around 10 p.m. in the garden area of the Green Haven Project community at 1160 NW Second Ave., according to a police report.

The girl told Miami Special Victims Unit detectives that Nuñez grabbed her as she left her friend’s house and took her to a couch in the garden. There, Jones and Tyson held her arms and legs down to prevent her from escaping, according to the report.

Det. Louis Joseph testified on Friday that Tyson not only held the girl down, but fondled her breasts.

Nuñez then began raping her while Jones stuffed rocks in her mouth to try to stop her from screaming, detectives said in the report. The horrifying ordeal lasted about 30 minutes, the girl told police, only ending after the boys ran away when they heard the victim’s father calling out her name in the distance, the report says.

The father and a witness, who’s a neighbor of the girl, were the first to report the incident to police, the report alleges. The witness flagged down officers the next day and told them she believed the girl was raped.

She said that between 10 and 10:30 p.m., she was picking up her mail and heard a girl screaming, “Stop. I’m not playing. I’m not playing,” according to the report.

The woman then yelled out into the distance, “Who’s screaming?” she told detectives. She then saw her neighbor, the girl’s father, yelling out for his daughter, the report states.

There was another boy who was with the group, but police say he did not participate in the attack. He told detectives he did not intervene because he “was afraid of getting beat up.”