Man Killed In Police Shooting Cleared Of Robbery Charge Just A Month Earlier
MIAMI (CBSMiami) -- The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office took no action last month in a case against one of the men killed in a police involved shooting Tuesday morning.
Corsini Valdes, 50, had been charged with armed robbery in October.
The charge did not stick.
Instead, Valdes went free, only to be shot and killed in a hail of police gunfire aimed at the blue Volvo in which he was a passenger.
Valdes was in the car with 27-year-old Adrian Montesano, who according to police held a woman at gunpoint at a Little Havana Walgreens before shooting a Miami-Dade officer, stealing a police cruiser and leading cops on a chase, picking up Valdes along the way.
Montesano's family said he had a substance abuse problem and records show Valdes may have battled similar demons.
His criminal history includes a string of marijuana and crack cocaine possession charges.
In October, he was accused of holding a man at knifepoint before beating and trying to rob him
He was assigned a public defender, but a month after his arrest the Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office dropped the charges.
In a close out memo, the prosecutor wrote "the victim could not be located" when police tried speaking to him.
"Despite the victim's unwillingness to appear for a pre-file conference, the State also did not find the victims' account of the events of 10/6/13 to be credible," Assistant State Attorney Terry Livanos wrote in the memo.
The victim, Juan Melendez, originally told police he was walking home from work when a man approached him to ask for a cigarette, the report stated.
According to police, Melendez said he was punched in the face and dragged to a house.
But the State Attorney's Office investigation found, the victim "voluntarily had placed himself inside the defendant's residence and that he was not beaten and dragged there as he had stated."
Instead, the memo explains Valdes claimed he and a friend had been running a prostitution operation at that home, and that the victim was attacked because he refused to pay for the services of a woman named Pinky.
A woman who identified herself as Corsini Valdes' wife told our partners at the Miami Herald she was shocked to learn of his death.
The paper reports Elsa Innamorato described Valdes as a simple guy who did not care about money.
She did not know why he was with Montesano that morning.
