A Kendall man accused of fatally shooting his neighbor during a dispute over dog poop back in 2015 yelled at the victim's wife as he was sentenced to life in prison Thursday.
Omar Rodriguez was given the life sentence in the killing of Jose Rey during a court hearing, where he lashed out at Rey's wife.
"The coward was your husband," Rodriguez said as Rey's widow, Lissette Rey, gave a statement during the hearing. "That’s why I killed him…he cried like a baby."
Rodriguez, who was handcuffed and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, was removed from the courtroom by multiple officers.
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"I wish though the death sentence would have been on the table but at the end of the day Mr. Rodriguez will continue to see his family, they will be able to see him, I'll never get to see my husband again," Lissette Rey said. "I wasn’t listening to exactly to what he was saying, I was tuning him out, I was just reading my thoughts. His words are irrelevant. He is irrelevant In my life right now. He’s pond scum."
Rodriguez, now 75, had been convicted by a jury back in May on second-degree murder and aggravated assault charges in the June 2015 shooting of Jose Rey.
The jury took about six hours to deliberate. The assault charge stemmed from Rodriguez threatening Rey's wife.
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 earlier this year, 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 in May.
Defense attorney Bruce Lehr had argued that Rey was the threat and that neighbors were a lynch mob out to get his client. He previously 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."
