NYPD officers file through a Queens courthouse at the trial against Guy Rivera, a Queens man whose gun fired the shot that killed 31-year-old NYPD Detective Jonathan Diller.
Photo by Dean Moses
After about eight hours of deliberation, a Queens jury on Wednesday delivered a mixed verdict against the man holding the gun that killed 31-year-old NYPD Detective Jonathan Diller during a March 2024 traffic stop.
Though they found Guy Rivera, 36, not guilty of murdering Diller in the first degree, the jury still found him at fault in Diller’s death, convicting him on the lesser charges of aggravated manslaughter and illegal weapons possession. They also found him guilty of the attempted first-degree murder of Diller’s partner, Sergeant Sasha Rosen, who stopped Rivera’s car along with Diller.
Queens District Attorney Melinda Katz and Patrick Hendry, president of cop union Police Benevolence Association, said they were glad Rivera will likely spend the rest of his life in prison, but were disappointed he was acquitted on the first-degree murder charge.
“These police officers know behind me that this was murder one [charge] on a New York City police officer,” Hendry said outside the courthouse. “This cold-blooded killer had no regard for human life … and carried a loaded firearm onto the streets. When our police officers approached him, he could have surrendered that illegal firearm, but no. He saw a police officer and didn’t care who was behind the uniform. He squeezed that trigger.”
Prosecutors charged Rivera after his gun shot and killed Diller during a stop on Mott Avenue in Far Rockaway. Rivera was a passenger; officers pulled over the car, driven by his friend Lindy Jones, because Rosen thought she saw Rivera carrying a gun earlier that evening.
The pair, along with three other officers in their Community Response Team, asked Rivera and Jones to lower the windows, open the doors and step out of the car, but Rivera remained inside, triggering a brief scuffle between him and police through the car window. It concluded with gunshots that ended Diller’s life.
Over a three-week trial, jurors repeatedly watched, and attorneys picked apart, body-worn camera footage of the incident.
Rivera’s attorney, Jamal Johnson of the Legal Aid Society, argued that Rivera did not intend to kill Diller, or even for his gun to go off. He said it was actually Rosen whose finger hit the trigger when she reached into Rivera’s car.
Johnson also told the jury the officers who took the stand had a motive to lie about what happened to protect themselves. Rivera was also shot in the March 2024 scuffle.
Assistant District Attorney John Kosinski argued there was no doubt Rivera intended to kill Diller, who lived in Massapequa Park, saying he declined to cooperate with officers and acted with a disregard for life to save himself from potential arrest after being caught with an illegal weapon.
Katz and Hendry portrayed Rivera as aggressively fighting back against and mocking officers during the encounter.
“Guy Rivera made a choice in not putting the gun down,” said Katz, who teared up through her own and Hendry’s remarks. “The shooting wasn’t accidental and it wasn’t impulsive. Guy Rivera wasn’t only armed with an illegal firearm, he was ready and willing to use it.”
Rivera’s verdict came after contention among the jurors. After the jury’s foreperson initially read out its verdict, the court clerk asked each juror whether that was their truthful verdict, a process that’s typically considered a formality. Juror No. 5, however, said no.
That sent the jury back into deliberations just before 5 p.m. Wednesday. They returned the verdict about two hours later.
Rivera, who has a criminal record, faces up to life in prison when he’s sentenced later this month, prosecutors said Wednesday.
In the past he served six years in prison on drug possession charges in 2016, during which he was also convicted of a hate crime for throwing feces and urine at officers.
Jones, who’s charged in a separate case related to the shooting, has 14 prior arrests on his record, including for an attempted murder charge and a domestic violence allegation.
Additional reporting by Dean Moses
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