The rulings drew on the prosecution’s theory that officers used deadly force during a confrontation that followed Ordonez’s kidnapping during a robbery, and on the defense argument that the officers were protected by Florida’s “stand your ground” statute. On Monday, Broward Circuit Judge Ernest Kollra cleared three additional Miami-Dade officers in the case involving the 2019 death of Frank Ordonez, a UPS driver who had been taken hostage after a robbery.
According to prosecutors, Ordonez, 27, was delivering packages in Miami-Dade County on Dec. 5, 2019, when two would-be jewelry store robbers abducted him and forced him to drive away. Police said the chase ended at a busy intersection in neighboring Broward County, where officers confronted the UPS truck and a gun battle broke out.
Judge Kollra ruled that Miami-Dade officers Richard Santiesteban, Leslie Lee and Rodolfo Mirabal “could not be prosecuted” because Florida’s “stand your ground” law justified the shooting. The judge said the officers had reason to believe deadly force was necessary to end the confrontation, a finding that mirrored an earlier ruling in the same case.
In September, the same judge cleared officer Jose Mateo under the same legal rationale. Prosecutors said Mateo fired the shots that killed Ordonez, and they pursued criminal charges against the officers, including the manslaughter allegations later rejected in court.
At the hearing, court played footage from a body camera, according to the report, showing Mateo’s pursuit of the UPS truck and his partner in the passenger seat with a long gun drawn. The video also showed Mateo approaching the truck; investigators said he emptied his firearm’s magazine, reloaded, and then pulled Ordonez from the vehicle.
The gunfire was not limited to the hostage situation. The report said Cutshaw was killed in the barrage of gunfire that afternoon, alongside the two robbers and a passerby who also died in a hail of gunfire at an intersection in Miramar, Florida.
After Monday’s ruling, the Broward State Attorney’s Office said it would appeal all four officers’ cases, including the three cleared on Monday and Mateo’s September dismissal. In a statement, the office said, “Immunity from prosecution is not the same as a defense presented to a jury from this community,” and it argued that “Stand Your Ground immunity does not apply in matters involving innocent bystanders, like Frank Ordonez and Richard Cutshaw, who presented no danger to officers.”
With the four officers now cleared from prosecution under the court’s interpretation of “stand your ground,” each remains suspended from their jobs, and prosecutors will ask an appellate court to revisit whether the statute’s protections applied in the circumstances they alleged.