Former Gables Student To Be Sentenced For Stabbing Classmate
MIAMI (CBS4) – Andy Rodriguez, the former Coral Gables High School student, will learn his fate Tuesday morning as a judge is set to sentence him after he was convicted of second-degree murder.
Earlier this year, a jury found 19-year-old Rodriguez guilty in the stabbing death of classmate 17-year-old Juan Carlos Rivera.
Rodriguez who faces a maximum of life in prison will be sentenced by Miami-Dade Circuit Court Judge Dava Tunis.
Rodriguez's defense attorneys argued that their client acted in self-defense when he stabbed Rivera. Prosecutors countered that Rodriguez killed Rivera in a jealous rage after his ex-girlfriend, Daimilsis Salgado, befriended him.
"It was a hard decision to make. You have two mothers in pain, two young men and nobody is a winner," said juror foreperson Reva Homnick. "We all looked at the evidence and we came to the same conclusion. We all came together as a cohesive group, and we hugged at the end and felt we did the right thing."