A Connecticut man has been ordered to spend decades behind bars for his role in the death of former Puerto Rican Olympian Yarimar Mercado Martinez’s mother.
Jasper Greene was sentenced on Tuesday to 33 years in prison in connection with the gunfire that killed 56-year-old Mabel Martinez Antongiorgi. She was sewing in the craft room inside her Waterbury home on April 9, 2022 when a bullet fired from outside pierced through the wall and struck her in the head
Greene is one of three suspects — the others are Franklin Robinson and Levi Brock — charged in connection with the deadly violence. He was arrested in September 2023, nearly two months after Robinson was found guilty by a jury on murder and other charges. He has since been sentenced to 90 years in prison.
Per testimony from his trial, Robinson was left angry after another man said hello to his girlfriend, so he convinced Greene and Brock to shoot up his vehicle, parked at the time on Martinez Antongiorgi’s street.
Martinez Antongiorgi and her husband of over 30 years, John Luis Mercado, moved to the area from Puerto Rico shortly after Hurricane Maria devastated the territory back in 2017. Their daughter competed for Puerto Rico in rifle shooting at the Olympics in 2016, 2021 and 2024.
She was in Brazil for another competition when her mother was killed.
“Why you?” she wrote on social media at the time. “Why this way? You were just sitting in your little house sewing, as you always did.”
The third suspect, Brock, has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges in the case, including murder, and is currently awaiting trial.
With News Wire Services
