ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The Orange County Sheriff’s Office is coming under fire nearly two years after brutal shootings left a 9-year-old girl, an Orlando TV reporter, and another woman dead.
In a release on Monday, NeJame Law announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the sheriff’s office on behalf of three victims in those shootings: T’Yonna Major, her mother Brandi Turner and TV news reporter Dylan Lyons.
The incident happened in February 2023 after Keith Moses, 21, shot and killed 38-year-old Nathacha Augustin, whose body was later found by a car on Hialeah Street, deputies said. NeJame Law’s release shows that Augustin was a “rising star” in the hip-hop community, performing under the moniker of “Honey D.”
“After Nathacha Augustin was brutally murdered, a witness inside the vehicle she was shot in quickly identified the shooter as Keith Moses, who fled the scene on foot,” the lawsuit reads. “Moses’ description was not released to the public despite his unique and distinct appearance.”
According to the lawsuit, deputies managed to clean up the crime scene and reopen the area within around four hours, but failed to notify residents that Moses could still be in the area, even after being asked for information.
One of those residents was Turner, who had returned to the neighborhood after picking up her 9-year-old daughter from school. The lawsuit claims she noticed the investigation and stopped to ask a deputy what was going on, and she was simply told, “Everything is under control.”
But investigators said that hours after Augustin was killed, Moses came back to the area, entering Turner’s home through the back door nearly half an hour after deputies left the crime scene.
According to the sheriff’s office, that’s when Moses fatally shot 9-year-old T’Yonna Major and wounded her mother. He then fled the home, running into a Spectrum News 13 news team that was reporting on Augustin’s death.
“Minutes after Moses left the home of Brandi Turner and T’Yonna Major, (reporter) Dylan Lyons’ cameraman was unloading equipment from the back of the van when Moses approached the van and opened fire, striking the cameraman,” the lawsuit continues. “Moses continued shooting as he walked around to the side of the vehicle, pointed the gun at Dylan Lyons, and shot him in cold blood.”
While the cameraman and Turner ultimately survived their encounters with Moses, both Major and Lyons succumbed to their injuries, deputies later announced.
Shortly after this second round of shootings, deputies once more responded to the neighborhood and found Moses, whom they arrested after several minutes, the lawsuit states.
“After almost three minutes of Moses being in the direct line of vision of several deputies, two minutes of which his arms are raised as if to show surrender, Moses was apprehended and detained by deputies,” the lawsuit asserts. “The body-worn camera footage displayed a lackadaisical and unconcerned demeanor among the deputies.”
Moses was ultimately charged with first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, armed burglary, resisting arrest, shooting into a building, shooting into an occupied vehicle, carrying a concealed firearm, armed trespassing, and possession of a firearm by a felon.
The lawsuit accuses the sheriff’s office of racial discrimination, saying the agency does not provide adequate protection to residents of the Pine Hills area.
“The Orange County Sheriff’s Office maintains a policy that denies equal protection to residents of Pine Hills, such as T’Yonna Major, while similarly situated Windermere residents enjoy heightened security and safety measures for violent crimes,” the lawsuit claims. “By assigning inadequate personnel and safety measures to the residents of the primarily minority neighborhood of Pine Hills, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office denies residents such as T’Yonna Major access to public safety programs.”
The lawsuit asserts that Turner and her daughter were rendered “more vulnerable” to the killing spree after the deputy claimed that everything was under control.
In addition, the lawsuit says that deputies had released information about the shooting to the media, inducing an “affirmative duty to protect the news reporters who responded to the scene.” With Lyons’ death, deputies failed in that duty, the lawsuit claims.
As a result of these alleged failures, the lawsuit seeks compensation from the sheriff’s office for the damages incurred by Turner, as well as the estates of Major and Lyons.
The Orange County Sheriff’s Office released a statement Tuesday on the lawsuit:
Keith Moses is the only person responsible for the heinous acts of violence that took the lives of three of our residents and gravely injured two others. We grieve those losses along with our community. The claims against the Orange County Sheriff’s Office are unfounded and we will be asking the judge to dismiss this case.
This is the second lawsuit attorney Mark NeJame has filed regarding the 2023 killing spree. Last month he announced another case against Charter Communications on behalf of Lyons’ estate.
In that case, NeJame claims that the company — which owns Spectrum News 13 — was responsible for sending Lyons out to the crime scene, where he was ultimately shot and killed.
The read the copy of the lawsuit filed on Monday against the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, see below:
2025-2-17-EFiledComplaint (1) by Anthony Talcott on Scribd