A Florida man pleaded not guilty Monday to a second-degree murder charge related to the fatal shooting of a produce truck driver two years ago in Rockingham.
Jozsef Piri, 49, was arrested Dec. 16 in Florida, where he has been living, and extradited to Vermont on Dec. 23 in the death of Roberto Fonseca-Rivera. He has been held without bail at Southern State Correctional Facility in Springfield.
During an arraignment held via video conference Monday at Windsor Superior Court, Piri’s bail was set at $250,000 with conditions, following an agreement between Piri’s attorneys and prosecutor Steven Brown, deputy state’s attorney for Windham County.
Piri’s conditions of release include forfeiture of his passport and any firearms to law enforcement and a 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew at his home in Naples, Florida, where he moved in 2021.
Piri and his wife purchased the Naples house for $950,000, according to local land records. Piri previously lived in West Simsbury, Connecticut, with his wife and children, according to a police affidavit filed in support of the murder charge. The family also owned a 6.24-acre property in Londonderry, Vermont.
Piri formerly worked as a physician in Connecticut, according to the state’s registry.
The police affidavit written by Vermont State Police Detective Sgt. Tyson Kinney did not indicate an alleged motive for the killing but painted a picture of Piri being frustrated by a series of events that day. Piri and Fonseca-Rivera did not know each other, police said in a press release.
According to the affidavit, shortly before 6 p.m. on Nov. 1, 2019, Vermont State Police received a call informing them Fonseca-Rivera, 44, an employee at Katsiroubas Produce in Boston, had never returned to the shop after making a delivery to a Vermont restaurant.
Another employee had tracked the truck’s built-in GPS and saw it was stopped along Vermont Route 103 in Rockingham.
About a half-hour later, state police arrived on the scene and found the green box truck stopped in the southbound breakdown lane. The windshield had two holes, presumed to be from gunshots. Fonseca-Rivera was found in the driver’s seat of the truck. Emergency responders pronounced him dead soon after.
An autopsy performed by the chief medical examiner’s office in Burlington found Fonseca-Rivera’s cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the head and neck, which struck his chin and hit an artery. The 9 mm bullet was removed and sent to the Vermont Forensic Laboratory for further investigation.
After additional analysis, Vermont State Police concluded the gunshot could only have come from directly in front of the truck.
After collecting surveillance camera footage from nearby gas stations, as well as license plate information from an FBI license plate reader on Interstate 91 in Windham County, police identified Piri’s 2018 Toyota Tundra truck as a vehicle of interest.
Vermont State Police and Connecticut State Police interviewed Piri at home on Nov. 2, 2019, the day after Fonseca-Rivera was killed. Piri told police he drove up to the Londonderry house on Oct. 31, 2019, to fix an ongoing problem with the well pump, according to the affidavit. On Nov. 1, 2019, workers arrived to replace hundreds of feet of power line in addition to the well pump and left that morning. Piri told police the repairs cost far more than expected.
After the workers left, Piri left the Londonderry house shortly after noon to return to Connecticut, according to the affidavit. Piri told police he pulled into a car wash along Route 103 in Chester but decided to leave without washing the car because a machine would not recognize his credit card after multiple swipes.
Piri said he pulled out onto Route 103, saw no other cars in front or behind him and set cruise control. He said he stopped at a Costco in Connecticut before arriving in West Simsbury at about 4:30 p.m.
Piri described it as a “shit day” in his first interview with police.
In response to detectives’ questions, Piri said he had not been following the news and was not aware of the shooting of the produce truck driver nor the investigation in the Chester area.
When police obtained a search warrant to analyze the search history on Piri’s phone a few months later, they found that in the hours after Fonseca-Rivera was killed, there were several searches for Chester and Rockingham news, and Piri had opened an online article about the shooting before police arrived at his house.
In response to a warrant, representatives from Google told state police that Piri had deleted all location tracking data connected to his email address from Nov. 1, 2019 to Nov. 2, 2019. According to Google, this was the only time Piri had ever deleted his location data, the police affidavit stated.
When Vermont State Police searched Piri’s Londonderry house in February 2020, they found and seized three firearms. Only the frame remained on the Walther PPS 9 mm handgun, while the barrel and slide — which police said are necessary for forensic ballistics investigation — were missing. According to the affidavit, Piri told police he did not know where these parts were and that the gun had been misfiring, and he had meant to order new parts but never did.
A background check revealed Piri had a concealed weapons permit in Connecticut, and the only weapon registered to him was an “AR-15 style rifle,” according to the affidavit. He had no criminal record.
Pedro Iroala, a friend of Fonseca-Rivera, was talking to Fonseca-Rivera on the phone either shortly before or during the gunfire. In an interview with Vermont State Police, Iroala said Fonseca-Rivera had told him about a vehicle in front of the truck that was speeding up and slowing down.
The day after Fonseca-Rivera’s death, Katsiroubas Produce posted a statement on Instagram remembering him as a “dedicated, kind and reliable coworker” who would stay after work to help his colleagues repair their vehicles.
“We want justice for Roberto,” the statement read.
If convicted, Piri potentially faces life in prison with a presumptive minimum sentence of 20 years, according to court documents.
