Jacksonville drug leader faces trial again on charges of hiring a hitman

Dustin Westfall is charged with a 2018 crime in which police say he paid someone to kill a man. The former ER nurse has already been sentenced to 25 years on drug charges.

JACKSONVILLE, Florida — Dustin Westfall, a former emergency room nurse sentenced to 25 years in prison during a major drug arrest, will now stand trial for hiring a hitman. Jury selection was taking place in Duval County Court on Monday as prosecutors plan to claim Westfall was responsible for both the murder and the attempted murder.

Westfall was charged with paying a man named Justin Williamson to carry out the murder.

On February 8, 2018, Williamson shot 37-year-old Jennifer Rene Embry and critically wounded her boyfriend, 35-year-old Michael Christopher Collins. Police stated that Collins was the intended target; Embry seems to be an unfortunate causal relationship.

Williamson was arrested 20 days later – he is serving a 40-year sentence for murder and attempted murder.

It wasn’t until October 2019 that the police announced that Westfall would also be charged with the crime. The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office stated that he and Williamson were friends; Westfall asked him to kill Collins for money.

By then, Westfall had already been imprisoned for his role in the drug business, which fell apart as a result of a major drug arrest. Public Prosecutor Leah Owens, who will also represent the state in the murder case, said at the time that there was “so much meth that it’s hard to tell how many people were affected by the distribution.”

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