Jury Awards $779 Million to Widow of Security Guard Killed in Robbery at Havana, Florida Internet Cafe
After trial: We found no reported appeal or post-trial ruling. It is unclear whether the defendants carry liability insurance, and the family's lawyer said they would pursue garnishments and liens.
Won by Ben Crump Law.
Lewis Butler, a security guard, was shot eight times and killed in November 2023 during an armed robbery at an internet cafe in Havana, Florida. The cafe's operators had not reported a robbery three weeks earlier in which the gun used against him was stolen. In December 2025 a Gadsden County jury awarded his widow $779,389,024, including $550 million for pain and suffering and $225 million for loss of companionship.
What happened
Lewis Butler, a security guard, was shot eight times and killed in November 2023 at an internet cafe in Havana, Florida, while he was trying to protect a cashier during an armed robbery. In December 2025, a Gadsden County jury awarded his widow, Kimberly Butler, $779,389,024 in a wrongful death suit against the cafe's operators.
The robbery was not the first at the business. About three weeks earlier, in October 2023, the same cafe had been robbed at gunpoint. The suit alleged that its operators never reported that robbery to law enforcement, kept large amounts of cash on site, and did not warn people working there of the danger. A gun stolen in the October robbery was the one used in the November attack that killed Butler.
Butler's widow sued Fortune MGT 2023 LLC, the company that operated the cafe, along with its owner, Manishkumar Patel, and Evan's Groceries. Ben Crump represented her, with Tallahassee attorney Robert Scott Cox as co-counsel. The case went to trial in Gadsden County Circuit Court in Quincy, and the jury returned its verdict in the first week of December 2025.
The criminal case had already run its course. The gunman was convicted of first-degree murder and of attempted murder for shooting a store clerk in the same robbery, and was sentenced to life without parole in December 2025. The civil jury's task was to decide what the cafe's operators owed the family for what they knew and failed to do after the October robbery.
The jury awarded $550 million for pain and suffering and $225 million for loss of companionship, with the remainder of the total covering other damages. It did not award punitive damages. The award was reported as a record for Gadsden County.
Collecting is a separate question. Press reports said it was unclear whether the cafe carried liability insurance, and Crump said the family would look to garnishments of bank accounts and liens on property. Kimberly Butler has also called for a state law, which she calls the Lewis Butler bill, that would increase penalties for illegal internet gambling cafes.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Insurance Journal, 'Florida Jury Returns $779M Verdict for Family of Security Guard Killed at Gambling Cafe', Dec. 11, 2025·Archived copy
- 2.WCTV, 'Jury awards $700 million wrongful death verdict in 2023 murder of security guard in Havana', Dec. 9, 2025·Archived copy
- 3.Daily Business Review, 'Ben Crump Behind Florida Jury's Record $779M Award', Dec. 9, 2025·Archived copy
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