{"id":55429,"date":"2025-04-21T20:35:35","date_gmt":"2025-04-22T00:35:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=55429"},"modified":"2025-04-21T20:36:41","modified_gmt":"2025-04-22T00:36:41","slug":"former-polk-county-deputy-no-shows-dui-manslaughter-trial-warrant-issued","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2025\/04\/21\/former-polk-county-deputy-no-shows-dui-manslaughter-trial-warrant-issued\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Polk County deputy no-shows DUI manslaughter trial; warrant issued"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A judge has issued a warrant for a former Polk County deputy after he failed to appear in a Tampa courtroom to stand trial in a 2022 DUI manslaughter case.<\/p>\n\n\n

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In the early morning hours of April 13, 2022, Tampa police said Joshua Roelofs was driving at about 100 mph on the Courtney Campbell Causeway when he rear-ended a Kia Sorrento with four people inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SUV overturned, investigators said, killing two 44-year-old men: Kristopher Koroly and Ricky Gongora. A 36-year-old man and a 33-year-old woman also suffered critical injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Investigators arrested Roelofs the following month on several charges, including two counts each of vehicular homicide and DUI manslaughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jury selection in his trial was set to begin on Monday, but Roelofs was a no-show. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roelofs previously worked for the Polk County Sheriff’s Office but wasn’t employed there at the time of the crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sheriff’s office says he was a PCSO deputy until 2015, when he was arrested for falsifying his timecard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge issued a warrant for Roelofs’ arrest and revoked his bond, saying he will reassess where the case stands once Roelofs is in custody.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A judge has issued a warrant for a former Polk County deputy after he failed to appear in a Tampa courtroom to stand trial in a 2022 DUI manslaughter case. In the early morning… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMDRcL2pvc2h1YS1yb2Vsb2ZzLTE2eDktMS53ZWJwP2ZpdD05MzIlMkM1MjQmc3NsPTEiLCJ0eHQiOiJGb3JtZXIgUG9sayBDb3VudHkgZGVwdXR5IG5vLXNob3dzIERVSSBtYW5zbGF1Z2h0ZXIgdHJpYWw7IHdhcnJhbnQgaXNzdWVkIiwidGVtcGxhdGUiOiJoaWdod2F5IiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.lFfCdLn0jV051uRzJTU3s8sAd5_Cl3m8iCj6XDD90NIMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":55430,"url":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/joshua-roelofs-16x9-1.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[11383],"class_list":["post-55429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-former-polk-county-deputy-no-shows-dui-manslaughter-trial-warrant-issued"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55429"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55431,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55429\/revisions\/55431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}