2 days ago
Fugitive ex-cop arrested 4 months after skipping Tampa trial in fatal DUI
TAMPA — Joshua Roelofs, the former cop who skipped town last spring rather than face trial on charges that he caused a fatal drunk-driving crash on the Courtney Campbell Causeway, is back in jail.
Roelofs, 36, was arrested Tuesday after living four months as a fugitive. He was booked a little before midnight in Hillsborough County's Orient Road Jail.
Details about when and where Roelofs was located could not immediately be confirmed. The U.S. Marshals Service and the Tampa Police Department did not immediately respond to inquiries late Tuesday about the case.
Jail booking records list Roelofs' arrest location as a terminal at Miami International Airport, an indication that he may have been taken into custody overseas before being brought back to the U.S.
Roelofs is charged with two counts of DUI manslaughter related to the April 2022 deaths of Ricky Gongora and Kris Koroly. The pair were friends who'd worked together at the Salt Cracker Fish Camp on Clearwater Beach.
'We've just been crying happy tears,' Gongora's sister, Victoria Negrete, said late Tuesday. 'It's been a three-plus-year nightmare for our families.'
Prosecutors say Roelofs was the driver of a Nissan GT-R sports car that slammed into the back of a Kia Sorrento SUV early the morning of April 12, 2022, while heading east along the Causeway. The car was determined to have been moving at more than 100 mph.
Koroly and Gongora were both thrown to the pavement as the SUV overturned. The other driver, William Camacho, was severely injured and remains permanently disabled. His girlfriend, Jessica Perez Ruiz, was also injured but recovered.
A medical test pegged Roelofs' blood alcohol content at .069 about five hours after the collision, according to court records. Investigators concluded he was likely well-above the .08 limit at which state law presumes impairment when the crash occurred.
Receipts presented as evidence in court showed he'd paid for several vodka-based drinks in the hours before the crash at Yard of Ale and Park & Rec in downtown St. Petersburg.
Roelofs worked for about five years as a Polk County sheriff's deputy. He was fired in 2015 after his superiors accused him of filing inaccurate time records to receive extra pay. In the years thereafter, he worked in several businesses, including a solar energy company.
He quickly posted bonds after his 2022 arrest and got out of jail. He'd attended all court hearings as he tried to fight the charges against him.
In April, after legal efforts to suppress some of the evidence in his case failed, it was anticipated that Roelofs would plead guilty and let a judge decide a sentence. But then he disappeared.
Now that he's back in jail, it is unclear whether Roelofs is still poised for a guilty plea or if he will try to contest the case in a trial. Whatever the outcome, his jaunt away virtually ensures he will remain incarcerated until the case concludes.
