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Florida man charged with murdering Roslindale produce driver in Vermont in 2019

The Chester Telegraph reports a Florida doctor is in a Florida jail awaiting transport to Vermont to face second-degree murder charges for the shooting death of Roberto Fonseca-Rivera, 44, of Roslindale in Vermont in November, 2019.

Fonseca-Rivera was in Vermont making deliveries for Katsiroubas Bros., a produce company in the former Stop & Shop complex in Readville that has customers across the region. His body was found next to his truck on the side of Rte. 103 in Rockingham, VT

The Chester Telegraph reports authorities charge that Dr. Jozsef Piri of Naples, FL, who has a second home in Londonderry, VT, shot Fonseca-Rivera as both were driving on Rte. 103 in Rockingham.

The Hartford Courant reports Piri told investigators he'd been having "a shit day" that day due to issues with a water pump at his home.

Innocent, etc.

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Comments

I guess we’ll know more soon.

Glad the shooter has been tracked down.
Must have been, still be, awful for friends and family.
For both men’s.

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This is a strange case.

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From the linked article about the arrest:
“Using GPS data and surveillance videos, detectives determined that Piri was driving immediately in front of Fonseca-Rivera when the shooting occurred and that the Katsiroubas truck was in motion at the time.”

Sounds to me like Piri was a menace. Flagged by ATF for buying lots of guns?

My purely uninformed guesses are
(1) Piri was involved in the drug distribution ring Fonesca-Rivera was arrested for in the past, and this was targeted.
(2) Piri was an entitled ragey gun nut who thought he could get away with it

Also it takes some skill to shoot someone behind you while driving. Was someone else driving? Tesla autopilot?

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He was being tailgaited and lost it.

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et al. all lead with polished handout photos of the doctor. The victim either doesn't appear, or has a photo somewhere down below.

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Immediately after the shooting, plenty of sites ran the poor victim's photo, even this site.

The Globe had a decent story about him as well.

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because it was short and the key takeaway was the victim's (non-violent, drug-related) criminal record.

The Brattleboro Reformer reports that Fonseca-Rivera had been sentenced to a year in federal prison last November after pleading guilty to conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute and to distribute cocaine for his role in a South Shore cocaine ring.

Judging by the now-cingeworthy comments on the original article, I wasn't alone in shrugging off the story with a reaction of "Oh, some drug deal gone bad up in the woods of Vermont, must've been making a delivery."

So with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, it's clear that the Globe did have a decent story about him, which (we can now look back and say) assigned the drug charge appropriate weight by not mentioning it until the 12th paragraph and providing the context it deserved - a service to the victim and to the reader, it now turns out.

Fonseca-Rivera had recently returned to his job with the produce company after pleading guilty to a federal drug charge in the fall of 2018 and serving a short prison sentence, Katsiroubas said.

Company officials felt the charge against him was not major and that he had earned their respect, Katsiroubas said.

“He had served his time and he really, from all of our perspectives, left such a good impression on us that we felt comfortable bringing him back,” Katsiroubas said. “We believed in him and felt like he was a good employee.”

Fonseca-Rivera had pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of conspiracy to posses cocaine with intent to distribute, Silverman said. Fonseca-Rivera was one of five people arrested in the operation, accused of picking up packages containing cocaine that had been mailed from Puerto Rico to addresses in Canton, Stoughton, Quincy, and Framingham, according to a press release from US Attorney Andrew E. Lelling’s office.

Fonseca-Rivera was sentenced to a year and a day in prison, court records show. It was the shortest sentence handed down in the drug trafficking case: The other four men accused with him are serving sentences of between 2½ and 17½ years. It was unclear Sunday when Fonseca-Rivera was released from prison.

Admittedly Adam, you did include an excerpt from the Katsiroubas Bros. press release praising the victim, and you did comment on your own piece by referring to the victim as "such a good guy...the Globe reports," but it's tough to tell whether the latter is genuine or skeptical.

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