The State of Louisiana has three weeks to take custody of a man arrested near Willcox last week after a state trooper responding to a traffic accident discovered the passenger was named in a nationwide fugitive warrant for violating parole in a 2017 homicide case.
Jermaine Albert Jones’s wanted status came to light July 28 when Trooper R. Rodriguez of the Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) responded to a report of a motor vehicle accident. Jones, 26, was a passenger in a vehicle involved in the collision, according to DPS Captain Eddie Rogers.
Trooper Rodriguez booked Jones him into the Cochise County jail on the Louisiana warrant which warned officers that Jones has “violent tendencies.” The warrant also requires any judge to hold Jones without bail pending extradition.
Jones waived extradition proceedings during an Aug. 2 hearing at the Cochise County Superior Court. Judge Timothy Dickerson has given Louisiana officials three weeks to finalize arrangements for Jones’s transfer of custody.
Public records show Jones was indicted in 2017 for second-degree murder in connection to the drug overdose death of a Lafayette, Louisiana man. He was later convicted of negligent homicide and distribution of heroin, but became eligible in September 2019 “to be released by diminution of sentence.”
As a result, Jones was placed on supervised parole through August 2023. He was prohibited from leaving Louisiana without written permission of a parole officer. He also had to remain law-abiding.
A warrant issued for Jones’s arrest in March 2021 by the Louisiana Committee on Parole ordered Jones be “retaken and reimprisoned” for unspecified parole violations. Other records show Jones became the subject of a second warrant issued in Louisiana on June 24 related to charges of aggravated assault with a firearm.
The second warrant was extraditable only if Jones was taken into custody in a neighboring parish.
If Jones is not picked up from the Cochise County jail by Aug. 23, then Dickerson will conduct a hearing to issue a final order demanding Jones be retrieved by Sept. 2 or else he will be released from custody.
Court records related to the July 28 motor vehicle accident show Jones was in a vehicle driven by a 24-year-old Louisiana woman who is listed on Facebook as a student at Grand Canyon University.
