A man charged in a Reading shooting who was also linked to the shooting of former Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz has been shot to death in the Dominican Republic, according to media reports.
Luis A. Rivas-Clase, 33, who at one time lived in the 100 block of West Windsor Street, was killed Sunday afternoon by unidentified suspects, according to news reports from the Dominican Republic and the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Rivas-Clase was wanted by federal and local authorities on a charge of conspiracy to commit homicide in an April 2018 shooting in the 900 block of North Front Street.
According to charging documents, Rivas-Clase threatened to kill the local victim a few days before that man was shot in the lower back by 19-year-old Johansel A. Jackson. Jackson was sentenced in April 2019 to 12 to 35 years in state prison for the shooting.
Because Rivas-Clase has died, the charges against him in the Reading case were withdrawn Monday, said District Attorney John T. Adams.
“From our records and what we know about him, he was a violent offender,” Adams said of Rivas-Clase. “All too often individuals who are violent then themselves fall victim to violence, and this is another example of that.”
Two months after the conspiracy charges were filed in Reading, Dominican National Police linked Rivas-Clase to the June 2019 shooting of the baseball star during a nightclub attack in Ortiz’s hometown of Santo Domingo.
Rivas-Clase, who was from the Dominican Republic, was the only suspect still being sought in the shooting of Ortiz.
Media reports said Riva-Clase was fatally shot in the city of Santiago de los Caballeros, in the northern region of the Caribbean country. Rivas-Clase was driving a silver Kia K5 when he was followed, chased and shot by unidentified people in another vehicle, according to sources interviewed by Dominican reporters.
Members of the Dominican National Police Department and district attorney’s office arrived at the scene and found Rivas-Clase was on the ground next to the car, which also had bullet holes. He was pronounced dead at the scene and his body taken to the Regional José María Cabral y Báez Hospital in Santiago, reports say. Police in the Dominican Republic confirmed his death, but did not provide details, according to media reports.
Ortiz, a first baseman and designated hitter, was shot in the lower back and faced surgeries in the Dominican Republic and the United States to repair his injuries. Authorities have said he was sitting next to the intended victim of the shooting and was not himself an intended target.
According to Dominican and Reading police reports, Rivas-Clase played a similar role in the Ortiz and Reading shootings: He helped organize and plan the crimes. In Ortiz’s case, Rivas-Clase was the last of 12 suspects wanted in the 2019 shooting. All the other suspects have been arrested and placed in prison in the Dominican Republic, including the triggerman, who confessed to the shooting.
The U.S. Marshals Service said at the time that Rivas-Clase could be hiding in Pennsylvania, New Jersey or New York. He had been on the run since.
Source: Berkshire mont
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