Suspect in murder of tech CEO Pava LaPere fights to suppress statement to police ahead of trial
BALTIMORE -- Jason Billingsley, charged in the murder of 26-year-old EcoMap Tech CEO Pava LaPere, appeared in a Baltimore City courtroom Thursday, where his lawyer fought to suppress a statement Billingsley gave to police following the brutal crime.
The defense alleged to Judge Robert Taylor that police misstated Billingsley's Miranda rights, and his videotaped statement was not freely made.
Prosecutors argued the defense failed to file its motion to suppress the statement in a timely manner and said the defense had the information for months.
Defense attorney Jason Rodriguez said he "didn't want to get into specifics" about what was contained in the statement "because it's a public filing" and cited "the high-profile nature of Mr. Billingsley's case."
The detective who took the statement was unavailable for the hearing Thursday morning, and the judge moved it to the afternoon so he could be questioned if needed.
Billingsley, 32, is set to stand trial in August.
Prosecutors did tell Judge Taylor they submitted a large amount of discovery information to the defense. "To call it voluminous would be an understatement," an assistant state's attorney said in court.
Billingsley is charged with killing LaPere at her Mount Vernon apartment building in September 2023.
Just days before the murder, he is accused of sexually assaulting, slashing and setting a woman on fire in an attack at her apartment on Edmondson Avenue in Upton. Police said he also attacked another man in the incident, which lead to a lawsuit against the property management company that hired Billingsley as a maintenance worker.
"Jason Billingsley literally tried to take my life. He tried to take my life, and this could have been prevented," the female victim told WJZ through tears earlier this year.
Baltimore police failed to immediately alert the public that Billingsley was a suspect in that rape and arson in the days before LaPere's murder.
Prior to these alleged crimes, Billingsley was found guilty of a sexual assault in 2015 and received a 30-year sentence. 16 of those years were suspended, and he ultimately served seven years before being granted early release for "good time credits," which at the time could net offenders 20 days off their sentences each month.
LaPere's family fought to pass the Pava Marie LaPere Act in Maryland's General Assembly earlier this year, which eliminated sentence reduction credits in first-degree rape cases. Governor Wes Moore signed it into law in May.
"There is no way in hell that he should be on the street, and yet he had already violated parole," LaPere's father, Frank LaPere previously told WJZ.
The hearing on the statement suppression is expected to begin at 2 p.m.
