A Florida man has been sentenced to one year in prison after pleading no-contest to tampering with evidence in the 2018 shooting death of a Black man, who was allegedly his lover.
On Jan. 25, Gardner Fraser, who is the son of a former Baker County Sheriff’s Office deputy, was told that he will have to spend a year in a Baker County jail and receive four years of probation. He claimed self-defense in the death of Dominic “DJ” Broadus II and was only charged with a felony for deleting communications from his phone following the shooting.
“My son was not the aggressor. My son went over there with flip-flops, $1,000 in his pocket, no way going over there for a fight,” Dominic Broadus Sr. said. “The investigators who arrived on the scene, even Baker County, said it didn’t even look like there was evidence of a scuffle or anyone had been in a fight for their life.”
Prosecutors argued that Fraser shot Broadus, then got rid of the victim’s phone, however, his defense team says their client immediately contacted law enforcement and did not try to hide Broadus’ body.
Prosecutors also believe that there was a sexual relationship between the two men and Fraser got rid of the phone because he wanted to hide their romance. According to ActionNewsJax, between 2017 and 2018, there were 35 texts and 115 phone calls exchanged between the men. Investigators say the conversations and images were sexual in nature.
“This defendant took the actions to get rid of that phone,” Assistant State Attorney Mark Caliel said. “Where it is, we don’t know your honor. To this day only one person knows where DJ Broadus’ phone is — that’s Gardner Fraser.”
During a Jan. 26 interview on “The Clay Cane Show,” Broadus Sr. spoke out about Fraser’s light sentence. “They’re trying to feed us crumbs,” he said. “We’re all disappointed because we know what the real charge should be, if not manslaughter, then murder in the first degree.”