A Kendall man accused of fatally shooting his neighbor during a dispute over dog poop back in 2015 has been found guilty.
Omar Rodriguez, now 74, was convicted by a jury Friday on second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges in the June 2015 shooting of neighbor Jose Rey.
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The jury took about six hours to deliberate. The assault charge stemmed from Rodriguez threatening Rey's wife, who was in court Friday and spoke after the verdict was handed down.
"It’s a long time waiting. Almost nine years waiting for justice to be served on my husband. He was taken from us. For no reason. By what I call now a beast," Lissette Rey said.
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According to police, Rey was walking his dog home in his Kendall neighborhood when Rodriguez said Rey's dog was attempting to defecate in Rodriguez's son's yard.
Neighbors told police that the two men began arguing loudly and Rodriguez told police that Rey threatened to return and fight him.
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At some point, police said Rodriguez shot Rey, who died from his injuries more than a week later.
After the shooting, Rodriguez requested immunity under Florida's so-called "Stand Your Ground" law, but in 2021 a judge ruled he didn't believe Rodriguez acted in self-defense.
In the 2021 proceedings, Rodriguez claimed Rey was threatening his life with a knife, but prosecutors said Rodriguez planted the knife at the scene and tried to jam it inside Rey’s hand.
Neighbors testified in 2021 and again this week, describing Rodriguez as confrontational and the "crazy neighbor."
"I heard someone yell what sounded like right before the gunshots, a woman's voice yelling 'he's crazy, he's crazy' and then pa-pa-pa, so that’s why it kind of sounded like fireworks," one neighbor testified.
Rey left behind two children.
"The life of the party. Friends with everybody from the guy standing right next to you to the CEO of a company, gives the shirt off his back, just a wonderful human being," Lissette Rey said.
Rodriguez will be sentenced at a later hearing and faces up to life in prison.
Defense attorney Bruce Lehr said Rey was the threat and that neighbors were a lynch mob out to get his client. He said he plans to appeal the verdict.
"This was a horrible situation because you had a neighborhood who hated a specific man and he got angrier. The neighborhood got angrier," Lehr said. "There’s definitely a lesson to be learned. Neighbors have to get along."
