A judge rejected intentional murder but convicted Raymond Jones of unintentional second-degree murder in Desirae Argueta-Joj’s killing.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The 128-month sentence imposed on Raymond Jones grew out of a split bench-trial verdict: the judge who heard the case rejected prosecutors’ intentional-murder theory but still found Jones guilty of second-degree unintentional murder for killing Desirae Argueta-Joj.
That procedural history is central to understanding the Sept. 11 sentence. Jones, 66, waived a jury and chose to have a judge decide whether the state had proved its charges. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said prosecutors sought a conviction for intentional second-degree murder. The judge found Jones not guilty of that offense and guilty of second-degree unintentional murder instead. At sentencing, prosecutors then asked for 180 months, the top of what they described as the presumptive range for the conviction. The court selected 128 months, the bottom of that range.
Minnesota law draws a clear line between the two forms of second-degree murder at issue. Intentional second-degree murder applies when a person causes another’s death with intent to kill but without premeditation. Unintentional second-degree murder can apply when a person causes a death without an intent to kill while committing or attempting to commit another qualifying felony. Both provisions authorize a maximum prison term of 40 years. A statutory maximum, however, is not the same as the sentence normally imposed under the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines, which use offense severity and criminal history to establish presumptive terms and ranges.
The prosecution’s post-sentencing criticism focused on that difference between what it asked the court to find and what the judge ultimately found. Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said Jones should have been convicted of intentional second-degree murder and argued that the evidence showed he fired at contact range during a dispute over $30. Her office also said the 128-month sentence minimized his culpability. The statement was an unusually explicit disagreement with the result, but the controlling judgment remained the judge’s: unintentional second-degree murder, followed by a sentence of 10 years and eight months.
The underlying shooting happened on Nov. 5, 2025, at Jones’ apartment in the 2600 block of West Broadway Avenue in Minneapolis. Officers found Argueta-Joj on the floor between a table and a couch, according to court-record accounts reported by FOX 9 and other outlets. A folding pocketknife was in her hand. She had suffered a fatal gunshot wound to the chest. The county attorney’s office later said evidence presented in court established that the shot went through her heart and was fired at contact range. Those facts became important because Jones maintained that the gun fired during a physical struggle.
Jones called 911 after the shooting and initially gave authorities an account in which Argueta-Joj had a gun, according to reports citing the probable-cause record. Investigators later learned that the firearm was Jones’ own .45-caliber handgun. He ultimately acknowledged pulling the trigger but said the discharge occurred while the two were struggling. Police documented no visible injuries, marks or scratches on Jones. That absence did not by itself resolve what happened inside the apartment, but it was one of the circumstances available to investigators and later to the court in assessing his description of the confrontation.
The conflict began, Jones told investigators, after he met Argueta-Joj and intended to pay her $30 for sex. They went to his apartment. Jones said the encounter did not proceed as planned and Argueta-Joj got up to leave. He then noticed the $30 was gone and prevented her from leaving, according to accounts of his statement. Jones said she produced a knife. He retrieved his handgun, and he described a struggle over the weapon. When detectives asked why he had not simply allowed her to leave, Jones replied that she had his $30. Prosecutors argued that this sequence supplied a motive for an intentional shooting rather than an accident.
The judge’s verdict shows that the state proved criminal liability for Argueta-Joj’s death without persuading the court on the element of intent required for the intentional count. That is why descriptions of Jones as having been acquitted of murder are inaccurate; he was convicted of murder, but of the unintentional form of second-degree murder. It is also why descriptions of the case as a jury verdict are incorrect. The county attorney’s own sentencing release says Jones waived a jury and placed the decision with the judge. Those distinctions are more than technical wording because they explain who evaluated the evidence and what legal conclusion that fact-finder reached.
Sentencing then presented a second exercise in judicial discretion. The prosecutor’s office said it requested 180 months, which it characterized as the highest presumptive sentence available. The judge imposed 128 months, which the office called the lowest presumptive sentence. Minnesota’s sentencing guidelines list second-degree unintentional murder as a severity-level 10 offense, with presumptive ranges that vary by criminal-history score. The county attorney did not describe the 128-month term as a downward departure from the guidelines. Its objection was that the judge selected the lowest end of the applicable range rather than the highest end sought by the state.
Moriarty’s public response combined criticism of the sentence with criticism of the way the victim was discussed in court. She said Argueta-Joj should still be alive and argued that attention to the $30 dispute and other circumstances had shifted too much blame onto the woman who was killed. The prosecutor said Jones did not take responsibility for his actions. Other court-record reporting described Jones as cooperative with police and remorseful after the shooting and during proceedings. Those points are not necessarily contradictory: cooperation and expressions of regret can coexist with a defendant’s insistence that a killing was accidental or otherwise less culpable than prosecutors allege.
Argueta-Joj’s own public record is brief. Her funeral home identifies her as Desirae Brown Argueta-Joj, born Jan. 30, 1983, in Chicago. It names her parents, Lisa L. Brown and Juan Ocampo, and says she was the mother of nine children. The obituary lists her death date as Nov. 5, 2025. That makes her 42 when she died, although some news stories reported her age as 43. The discrepancy does not alter any element of the criminal case, but the funeral-home dates provide the clearest support for her age.
The age error is not the only reporting discrepancy that emerged after sentencing. At least one national account said a jury had found Jones guilty of unintentional second-degree murder and not guilty of intentional murder. The prosecutor’s office directly contradicts that description and says Jones waived a jury trial. Because the office participated in the case and identified the court file as 27-CR-25-28272, its account is the stronger source on the procedure. Local coverage published after sentencing also described the case as a judge-decided trial.
The result leaves two distinct judgments on the record. First, the court found that Jones was legally responsible for Argueta-Joj’s death under Minnesota’s unintentional second-degree murder law. Second, the court declined to find that prosecutors had proved he intentionally killed her. The 128-month sentence follows the first judgment, while Moriarty’s criticism reflects the state’s continued disagreement with the second. Nothing in the sentencing announcement suggests that the judge reconsidered the acquittal on the intentional count.
As of the latest records reviewed, Jones’ 128-month prison term remains the operative sentence. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced no later modification in the materials located for this report, and no subsequent ruling changing the conviction was found. The most recent authoritative public update therefore remains the Sept. 11 sentencing notice, which records a case that ended at the trial-court level with a murder conviction, an acquittal on the state’s more serious theory and a sentence at the bottom of the presumptive range identified by prosecutors.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.