State Attorney Ed Brodsky announced today that Jamal Lamar Blakely was convicted after jury trial of two counts of Murder In The Second Degree With A Firearm. The crimes were committed on 02/07/2012 and investigated by Manatee County Sheriff’s Office. The trial was held at the Manatee County Courthouse on February 23rd through the 25th.
The crimes carry a maximum possible sentence of LIFE.
The minimum mandatory sentence is 25 years to LIFE.
Sentencing was held on February 25th, 2026, immediately following the trial. The defendant was sentenced to LIFE in prison to run CONSECUTIVE to the current prison sentence Blakely is currently serving.
On February 7th, 2012, Adrian Velasquez-Baca and Mauricio Maldonado-Conde were brutally shot to death inside their home during what appeared to be a robbery. Mr. Velasquez-Baca was shot multiple times in the back, and Mr. Maldonado-Conde was shot in the head with the gun pressed against his left temple. While the defendant was an early suspect, there was insufficient evidence at the time to charge anyone with these heinous crimes. Around this same time, however, Jamal Blakely, who was around 17 years old then, committed two violent rapes, one on October 9, 2011. where he drug the victim off the street at gunpoint and sexually battered her behind an abandoned house, and one on June 5, 2012, where he broke into a woman’s residence and sexually battered her inside. He was tried by this office and convicted of the October incident in 2014, and he ultimately entered a plea to the June incident in 2015, receiving a total sentence of 40 years in prison. It was not until he began serving this prison sentence that new evidence came forth regarding the murders in the form of admissions Jamal Blakely made about the killings to a prison cellmate, telling the cellmate intimate and specific details of the killing that were never made public or known to anyone outside of investigators and the person who committed the crimes. Through these admissions and the cooperation of that cellmate, combined with evidence that the defendant lived across the street from the victims at the time and his fingerprints being discovered on scene, along with additional investigative efforts by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office, Jamal Blakely was ultimately able to be charged for murders of Adrian Velasquez-Baca and Mauricio Maldonado-Conde, leading to his conviction this week. Due to him already serving a sentence for Sexual Battery, the LIFE sentence he received for the murders is to run consecutive to his current 40 year prison sentence.
The lead prosecutor in the case, Assistant State Attorney Rebecca Freel commented, “While it may seem sometimes that justice delayed is justice denied, this case is an example of the opposite being true. Through patience, tenacity, hard work, and a little bit of luck, the hard-working men and women of the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office were able to build a case against Jamal Blakely, and justice was finally achieved for the victims when, for a time, it seemed like their deaths may go unanswered. We appreciate the jury’s time and efforts in hearing the case this week, and we’re glad the families of the victims can finally put this brutal chapter of their lives to rest.”
If you have any questions or would like further information, please contact Assistant State Attorney Rebecca Freel in the Manatee County office at 941-747-3077.