Raymond Jones’ account of a struggle did not prevent a murder conviction, though the judge rejected prosecutors’ claim of intentional killing.
MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — A dispute over $30 that began inside a Minneapolis apartment ended with Desirae Argueta-Joj dead from a close-range gunshot, Raymond Jones convicted of murder and a judge imposing 128 months in prison.
The sequence is known largely because Jones called 911 and then gave investigators several statements about what happened. He said he had met Argueta-Joj earlier on Nov. 5, 2025, and intended to pay her $30 for sex. They went to his apartment in the 2600 block of West Broadway Avenue. Jones said the encounter did not work out and Argueta-Joj prepared to leave. At that point, he said, he realized the cash was gone and stopped her. What followed became the central factual dispute in the criminal case.
Jones told investigators that Argueta-Joj pulled a knife and that a struggle developed. His earliest account also said she had a gun and that it discharged during the confrontation, according to reporting based on the probable-cause affidavit. Investigators later established that the handgun was Jones’ own .45-caliber weapon. Jones acknowledged that he pulled the trigger but continued to describe the shooting as occurring during a struggle. When detectives asked why he had not simply allowed Argueta-Joj to leave, he said it was because she had his $30.
Police arriving at the apartment found Argueta-Joj on the floor between a table and a couch, according to published accounts of the court file. A folding pocketknife was in her hand. She had been shot in the chest and was dead at the scene. Officers reported that Jones had no visible injuries, marks or scratches. Prosecutors later emphasized the forensic evidence, saying the fatal round was fired at contact range and passed through Argueta-Joj’s heart. They argued that those circumstances were inconsistent with an accidental discharge and supported a finding that Jones intentionally fired at her.
Jones, now 66, chose not to have a jury decide that dispute. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said he waived a jury trial and asked a judge to determine guilt. That detail is important because some later summaries incorrectly described a jury verdict. After hearing the evidence, the judge found Jones not guilty of intentional second-degree murder but guilty of second-degree unintentional murder. The decision accepted that Jones was criminally responsible for causing Argueta-Joj’s death while rejecting the prosecution’s contention that it had proved the intent required for the intentional form of the offense.
The verdict narrowed the case but did not make the consequences minor. Minnesota law permits a sentence of up to 40 years for second-degree unintentional murder. Under the sentencing guidelines, however, courts ordinarily work within a presumptive range tied to the offense and the defendant’s criminal history. Prosecutors said the applicable range in Jones’ case ran from 128 months to 180 months. The state asked for the high end. At the Sept. 11 sentencing hearing, the judge imposed the low end: 128 months, or 10 years and eight months.
That sentencing choice triggered a public rebuke from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty. She said prosecutors believed Jones should have been convicted of intentional second-degree murder and should have received 180 months even on the lesser conviction. Moriarty said Argueta-Joj should still be alive and argued that Jones had not taken responsibility for his actions. She also criticized what she saw as blame being shifted toward the victim during the case. Her office described the 128-month punishment as the lowest presumptive sentence and its own 180-month request as the highest presumptive term.
The prosecutor’s criticism came after a case in which Jones’ conduct following the shooting was also part of the record. Reporting based on court documents said he cooperated with police and appeared remorseful at the scene, and that he continued to appear remorseful during the court proceedings. Those facts did not persuade prosecutors that he had accepted responsibility in the way they believed the case required. They also did not prevent conviction. They did, however, form part of the broader record a judge could consider separately from the prosecution’s view that the shooting itself was intentional.
The sentencing dispute therefore was not over whether Jones would be punished for Argueta-Joj’s death. The murder conviction made imprisonment the central consequence. The disagreement was over how the killing should be legally characterized and where the sentence should fall within the range attached to the offense the judge selected. Prosecutors lost the first argument when the judge acquitted Jones of intentional murder and lost the second when the court chose 128 rather than 180 months. Their post-hearing statement put both disagreements on the public record.
Argueta-Joj’s life appears only briefly in the criminal coverage. Her funeral home identifies her as Desirae Brown Argueta-Joj, born in Chicago on Jan. 30, 1983, to Lisa L. Brown and Juan Ocampo. It says she was the mother of nine children. The funeral-home notice records her death on Nov. 5, 2025, the same date given in the prosecutor’s sentencing release. Based on those dates, she was 42 when she died. Some secondary reports listed her as 43, but the obituary’s dates support 42.
The case illustrates how quickly a simple summary can obscure important differences. Saying Jones “murdered a woman over $30” captures the conviction and the dispute that preceded the shooting, but it can blur the judge’s refusal to find intentional murder. Saying a “jury” acquitted him of the intentional count is also wrong because Jones waived a jury. Saying he was sentenced to “more than 10 years” is accurate but less precise than the official figure of 128 months. The primary sentencing release helps resolve each of those points and identifies the case as 27-CR-25-28272.
The official record also places limits on what can be said with confidence. The materials reviewed do not establish that every detail in Jones’ statements was true. His account of the knife and struggle was part of the evidence, not an independent finding that all aspects occurred exactly as he described them. Likewise, the prosecution’s assertion that he intentionally fired at Argueta-Joj was its theory, not the final verdict on that count. The judge’s decision is the clearest legal dividing line: guilt for unintentional second-degree murder, acquittal for intentional second-degree murder.
That distinction matters when describing the role of the $30. Jones’ own statements linked the money to his decision to stop Argueta-Joj from leaving, and prosecutors relied on the dispute in arguing that he acted intentionally. The judge’s mixed verdict means the money can fairly be described as part of the confrontation that led to the killing, but the available public materials do not justify treating every aspect of the prosecution’s motive theory as a fact found by the court. The sentence rests on the offense of conviction, not on the intentional-murder count the judge rejected.
More than ten months separated the shooting from sentencing. During that period, the case moved from an emergency call and police investigation to a court trial, a mixed verdict and a sentencing fight over the top and bottom of the presumptive range. The final trial-court result left Jones convicted of murder and Argueta-Joj’s family with a sentence shorter than prosecutors wanted. Moriarty’s public statement made clear that her office regarded the outcome as insufficient, even though it fell within the range prosecutors themselves identified as presumptive for the conviction.
Currently, no later authoritative source reviewed for this report showed that Jones’ conviction or 128-month sentence had been changed. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Sept. 11 announcement remains the most recent official public update located. It records the end of the sentencing phase while preserving the central divide that ran through the case from the investigation onward: Jones described a struggle and denied an intentional killing, prosecutors argued for intent, and the judge held him responsible for murder without finding that intent proved.
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.