A federal appeals court has upheld the 20-year prison sentence of an Orlando drug dealer convicted in connection with a deadly 2022 shootout at a South Orlando shopping plaza, rejecting his argument that the killing amounted to self-defense. Cristian Ponce, now facing 240 months behind bars, had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to strike down a sentencing enhancement tied to the death of a rival dealer during a drug deal gone wrong.
In its August 7 ruling, the Eleventh Circuit found that Ponce could not invoke self-defense because he and a co-defendant chose to bring firearms into contested drug territory, an act the court said negligently created the danger that followed, according to Do It For The Caselaw. The panel applied a four-factor justification test from the case United States v. Deleveaux, concluding that dealers who carry weapons to sell narcotics on rival turf forfeit any claim that they were merely defending themselves when violence erupted.
As reported by the Tampa Free Press, the shootout unfolded around 2 p.m. on November 2, 2022, in the parking lot of an Orlando shopping plaza. Ponce was riding in the front passenger seat of a dark Nissan SUV driven by Savier Hernandez when Eminem Esquilin and Kevin Marrero approached to confront the pair over selling drugs in Esquilin's established territory. Investigators later determined the initial shootout took place at the Oak Ridge Shopping Plaza on South Texas Avenue near West Oak Ridge Road, drawing a large response from the Orange County Sheriff's Office, according to ClickOrlando.
Gunfire, a Crash, and Two Deaths
According to the Tampa Free Press account, Esquilin fired a gun into the SUV's passenger window, and people inside the vehicle returned gunfire. Savier Hernandez was shot during the clash and died five days later, on November 7, 2022. Gunfire from inside the vehicle struck and killed Esquilin, whom Orange County Sheriff's Office deputies identified as a 22-year-old, per WKMG.
The SUV crashed and flipped near the parking lot after speeding away from the scene, the Tampa Free Press reported. Investigators searching the vehicle found bags of cocaine, fentanyl, and two handguns inside, including one handgun on the floorboard that contained Ponce's DNA. Surveillance footage recovered from the plaza showed Ponce handing a small bag of cocaine to an individual through the passenger window just moments before Esquilin and Marrero approached, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Text Messages Undercut the Self-Defense Claim
Federal investigators recovered text messages that prosecutors used to show Ponce knew he and Hernandez were operating on rival turf. The day after the shootout, Hernandez texted Ponce, “That not y'all side tho,” and Ponce replied, “I know,” per court records cited by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Court documents also state that despite the fatal shootout, Ponce kept selling drugs from his Orlando residence over the following week, sending text messages and conducting short-stay drug transactions that surveillance officers observed on November 8, 2022.
Nine days after the shootout, federal and local law enforcement executed a search warrant at Ponce's Orlando residence on November 11, 2022, arresting him in a driveway vehicle alongside Hernandez's co-defendant, Rodney Hernandez, who was later sentenced in June 2024 to seven years in federal prison, the Justice Department noted.
How the Sentence Was Calculated
Ponce pleaded guilty to four federal drug and firearm charges on February 13, 2024. U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton, Jr. sentenced him on October 31, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida, a case Hoodline first reported at sentencing. The district court applied a murder cross-reference enhancement after determining the November 2, 2022 shootout qualified as second-degree murder under federal law, an enhancement that increased Ponce's total offense level from 17 to 35.
Court opinion records show the 240-month sentence was structured as concurrent 180-month terms for drug distribution and felon-in-possession counts, plus a consecutive 60-month term for possessing a firearm during a drug trafficking crime. The district court noted the case centered on a drug transaction involving firearms and drugs, and it determined Ponce remains legally accountable for Esquilin's death under sentencing guidelines even though the fatal shot came from Hernandez, the driver.
Appeals Court Rejects the Self-Defense Argument
Ponce argued on appeal that the murder enhancement was applied in error, contending that Hernandez shot Esquilin in self-defense after being ambushed. The Eleventh Circuit disagreed. Circuit Judge Elizabeth L. Branch, writing for the panel, found that Ponce and Hernandez chose to bring guns to deal drugs on a rival's turf, and the court held that self-defense justification was unavailable under the facts of the case.
Eleventh Circuit precedent requires a self-defense claimant to prove they did not negligently or recklessly create the situation requiring criminal conduct, and the panel found firearms carried by drug trafficking organization members exist to protect their product, turf, and themselves — not to support a later self-defense claim. The appellate court held that the shooting was reasonably foreseeable and was committed in furtherance of the joint drug conspiracy between Ponce and Hernandez. Circuit Judges Robin S. Rosenbaum and Elizabeth L. Branch joined the unanimous decision, along with District Judge Jacqueline Becerra, who sat by designation from the Southern District of Florida. Oral arguments in the case were heard on June 26, six weeks before the panel issued its written decision.
