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Gomez-Rodriguez gets life in double murder

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By Stephen Byrd/Muscatine Journal | Friday, March 10, 2006 |

MUSCATINE, Iowa — Saying that it was one of the saddest cases she had ever presided over, Seventh Judicial District Judge Bobbi M. Alpers today sentenced convicted double-murderer Luis Alberto Gomez-Rodriguez to life in prison.

“This was all about money and the collection of money,” Alpers told Gomez-Rodriguez. “Two people are dead and it didn’t have to be that way.”

Gomez-Rodriguez, formerly of Miami, Fla., will serve two concurrent life sentences for homicide as well as a five-year sentence for interference with official acts for the Feb. 23, 2005, murders of Julio Cesar Sarol-Cepero, 41, and Maria Antonia Rivero, 44, on the 1800 block of New Hampshire Street.

An additional felony charge of stalking was dismissed by the Muscatine County Attorney’s Office.

Gomez-Rodriguez, 40, was dressed in an orange jumpsuit, shackled and guarded by four Muscatine County Sheriff deputies and two Muscatine County Jail officials. When asked by Alpers if he wanted to make a statement to the court before sentencing, he said “No, I don’t” in English.

Through his court-appointed attorney, Murray Bell, Gomez-Rodriguez has filed a motion to appeal his sentence.

Along with his prison sentence, Gomez-Rodriguez was ordered to pay $750 and surcharges as well as undetermined court costs in both Muscatine and Scott counties. The case was heard to Scott County on a change of venue.

He was also ordered to pay $300,000 – $150,000 each – to Sarol-Cepero and Rivero’s estates.

In separate judgments, Alpers then ordered Gomez-Rodriguez to pay $2,260 and $7,500 for the Miami Beach, Fla., couple’s funeral expenses and forfeited $2,600 that was found on Gomez-Rodriguez by authorities at the time of his arrest.