Murder case of Guy Rivera, charged with killing NYPD Det. Jonathan Diller of Long Island, goes to jury

Both the prosecution and defense rested Friday morning in the murder trial of Guy Rivera, the Queens man accused of shooting and killing NYPD Det. Jonathan Diller in March 2024.

Queens Supreme Court Justice Michael Aloise said that court would resume on Tuesday, when the jury is expected to start deliberating. 

Rivera, 36, is on trial on charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, attempted first degree murder of a police officer as well as various weapons counts. Prosecutors charged Rivera with killing Diller during a street encounter on March 25, 2024, by 19-19 Mott Ave. in Queens.

Diller, of Massapequa Park, was part of a police community response team that approached Rivera and another man in a Kia Soul parked on Mott Avenue. Police body camera videos depicted Diller asking Rivera, who police believed had concealed a handgun in his hoodie, to exit the car. Rivera is seen attempting to quickly exit the car with an illegal .380-caliber handgun which discharged, fatally wounding the 31-year-old Diller. The officer was posthumously promoted to detective.

Most of the brief morning court session Friday was taken up by prosecutors playing for the jury a composite video from police body-worn camera recordings and surveillance videos of the Mott Avenue crime scene. The videos showed the shooting and prelude in sequence.

Diller’s widow, Stephanie, and other family members left the courtroom when the videos were shown to avoid seeing the graphic images of his being mortally wounded and falling to the street.

One video sequence was taken by Diller’s own body-worn camera as he lay on his back on a hospital gurney as he was being frantically wheeled into the emergency room of Jamaica Hospital Medical Center. The camera eerily caught the commotion from Diller’s point of view, although he was at that point considered by doctors to be dead.

Doctors restarted Diller’s heart a number of times but eventually he was declared dead about two hours after he was wounded, having lost an estimated 75% of his blood, according to trial testimony.

After the jury left the courtroom Friday, defense attorney Jamal Johnson repeated the defense contention that Rivera’s gun was fired unintentionally after another officer, Sgt. Sasha Rosen, placed his hand on Rivera’s arm and hand during an ensuing struggle.

Johnson said he would be asking Aloise to allow the jury to consider a charge of criminally negligent homicide as a lesser included alternative to the first-degree murder count. A conviction for criminally negligent homicide, which is not an intentional crime, would subject Rivera to much less prison time than the life sentence he would face for first-degree murder.

Assistant District Attorney Gabriel Reale told the judge the police videos and testimony indicated that there was no question that Rivera intentionally shot Diller.

Both prosecution and defense attorneys will submit proposed jury instructions and other legal arguments to Aloise over the weekend.