HARVEY, La. (WGNO) — On Thursday night, after deliberating for 45 minutes, a grand jury found a Harvey man guilty of killing another man during an online marketplace transaction. According to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney Paul D Connick Jr., Jalen Harvey was found guilty of killing Joseph Vindel, a New Orleans man who was trying to sell his dirt bike through an online marketplace app last year.
22-year-old Harvey was declared guilty of first-degree murder and was convicted as charged of obstruction of justice and monetary instrument abuse.
According to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney, Harvey shot Vindel multiple times while he was sitting in the driver’s seat of his sports utility vehicle outside a West Bank apartment complex on the morning of March 7, 2021.
Vindell was a real estate agent who advertised his dirt bike and put it up for sale on the OfferUp marketplace app. Harvey was accused of responding to the advertisement by using a fake name and phone number on the app. He then allegedly gave Vindel several meeting locations before directing him to the 2100 block of Manhattan Boulevard.
The Jefferson Parish District Attorney says that when Vindel arrived at the final location and Harvey shot Vindel on the right side of his face. The first shot caused a nonfatal wound, but he continued to shoot him on his neck, shoulder, and the back of his head and hand.
Vindel brought his pistol with him to make the transaction, but a round was never chambered, meaning he was not prepared to fire it said the Jefferson Parish District Attorney, but Harvey said that Vindel pointed the pistol at him during the transaction and held it in his left hand.
According to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney, evidence collected shows that after Vindel was shot, his heart was still pumping blood when Harvey dragged his body between the front seats to the back seat floorboard. Harvey then drove around the city in Vindel’s SUV for more than an hour. In testimony, Harvey admitted to dousing Vindel’s upper body with gasoline to ‘kill DNA.’
Along with that, after leaving the body and SUV in the 2300 block of Coliseum Street in the Garden District, Harvey drove Vindel’s dirt bike back to his West Bank apartment according to a press release.
Judge E. Adrian Adams of the 24th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Harvey on Oct. 6. Harvey faces a mandatory life sentence in prison according to the Jefferson Parish District Attorney.
