{"id":62188,"date":"2026-02-04T21:37:23","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:37:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=62188"},"modified":"2026-02-04T21:37:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T02:37:27","slug":"jury-finds-former-polk-county-deputy-guilty-in-manslaughter-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/04\/jury-finds-former-polk-county-deputy-guilty-in-manslaughter-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Jury finds former Polk County deputy guilty in manslaughter trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A former Polk County deputy who was arrested in Colombia was found guilty of all charges in a DUI manslaughter trial, for which he appeared in court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img data-dominant-color=\"8a7a7a\" data-has-transparency=\"false\" style=\"--dominant-color: #8a7a7a;\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"932\" height=\"524\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px\" src=\"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/joshua-roelofs-2.webp\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-62098 not-transparent\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/joshua-roelofs-2.webp 932w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/joshua-roelofs-2-300x169.webp 300w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/joshua-roelofs-2-768x432.webp 768w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Joshua Roelofs was charged with DUI manslaughter in a crash that killed two people on the Courtney Campbell Causeway in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Two others sustained lasting injuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A jury found Roelofs guilty of 2 counts of vehicular homicide, two counts of manslaughter while driving under the influence, two counts of driving under the influence causing serious bodily injury, and two counts of reckless driving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sentencing is scheduled for March 16 at 1 p.m.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-wp-embed is-provider-embed wp-block-embed-embed\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"rNqO72gIlO\"><a href=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/02\/jury-seated-in-trial-for-former-polk-county-deputy-accused-of-killing-2-in-courtney-campbell-causeway-crash\/\">Jury seated in trial for former Polk County deputy accused of killing 2 in Courtney Campbell Causeway crash<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; visibility: hidden;\" title=\"&#8220;Jury seated in trial for former Polk County deputy accused of killing 2 in Courtney Campbell Causeway crash&#8221; &#8212; \" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2026\/02\/02\/jury-seated-in-trial-for-former-polk-county-deputy-accused-of-killing-2-in-courtney-campbell-causeway-crash\/embed\/#?secret=YCu6DLofug#?secret=rNqO72gIlO\" data-secret=\"rNqO72gIlO\" width=\"600\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A former Polk County deputy who was arrested in Colombia was found guilty of all charges in a DUI manslaughter trial, for which he appeared in court on Tuesday. Joshua&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62098,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"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","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNlwvMDJcL2pvc2h1YS1yb2Vsb2ZzLTIud2VicD9maXQ9OTMyJTJDNTI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiSnVyeSBmaW5kcyBmb3JtZXIgUG9sayBDb3VudHkgZGVwdXR5IGd1aWx0eSBpbiBtYW5zbGF1Z2h0ZXIgdHJpYWwiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.eqM8eLkRuf5V8ABV6Oc_-CNcNrq8jKSwPCEqK2vjrNgMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":62098,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/joshua-roelofs-2.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[13521],"class_list":["post-62188","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-jury-finds-former-polk-county-deputy-guilty-in-manslaughter-trial"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62188","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=62188"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62188\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62189,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62188\/revisions\/62189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}