(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) “Extremely brutal and incredibly violent.”
That was how Florida State Attorney Amira Fox described surveillance footage showing an illegal alien from Haiti allegedly murdering a store clerk in a case now eligible for the death penalty.
The suspect, Rolbert Joachin, was indicted Thursday by a grand jury on a first-degree murder charge after prosecutors said he viciously assaulted Nilufa Easmin, a 51-year-old Bangladeshi immigrant, with a hammer until she died.
As previously reported by Headline USA, the attack occurred April 2 at a gas station where Easmin worked.
Security video showed Joachin approaching Easmin while she stood outside the store, striking her with a hammer and forcing her to the ground. He repeatedly hit her in the face as she as she lay bleeding.
Each blow caused Easmin’s arms to jolt in the harrowing footage.
“This crime was so violent, so extreme, so unwarranted. It is something that once seen, is never to be forgotten,” Florida State Attorney Amira Fox said in a statement announcing the Lee County grand jury indictment.
“I want to thank the Lee County Grand Jury who watched and reviewed the gruesome evidence in this case and gave their full attention. I know it was not easy. This defendant entered the United States illegally and brutally ended the life of a mother simply at her job, working to provide for her family,” she added.
According to the indictment, Joachin caused the victim’s death “by inflicting blunt force injuries upon her using a weapon, to wit: a hammer or blunt instrument, contrary to Florida Statute, and during the commission of said offense was an unauthorized alien.”
Fox said Joachin will be “punished to the fullest extent of the law,” and that prosecutors will seek the death penalty.
Video of the incident drew condemnation from authorities, lawmakers and President Donald Trump, who described footage of Easmin’s “brutal slaying” as one of the “most vicious things you will ever see.”
Earlier in the statement, Trump said, “An Illegal Alien Criminal from Haiti, who was released into our Country by the WORST President in History, Crooked Joe Biden, and the Radical Democrats in Congress, just beat an innocent woman to death with a hammer at a gas station in Florida.”
Joachin entered the U.S. illegally in August 2022 but was released shortly afterward under the Biden administration. A federal judge later issued a final order of removal against him, but he was nonetheless granted Temporary Protected Status.
That TPS protection expired in 2024. However, Joachin reportedly remained in the United States unlawfully, according to the New York Post.
