CHARLOTTE AMALIE — A 54-year-old St. Thomas woman who admitted to slashing a tire on a neighbor’s car in 2016 was identified by police as the victim of the hit-and-run driver on Tuesday.
Mary Rivera of Estate Wintberg was sentenced to one year in prison in February 2017 after she admitted to damaging a vehicle in an Aug. 14, 2016 incident.
Rivera was struck by a hit-and-run driver on the Weymouth Rhymer Highway on Monday night near the Church of God of Prophecy on Route 38 in Estate Donoe.
In the 2016 destruction of property incident, prosecutors proved that she slashed a tire on her neighbor’s car and removed the front license plate.
Superior Court of the Virgin Islands Judge Renée Gumbs Carty publicly berated Rivera during her sentencing in 2017.
“It appears that you’re a menace to this society,” Gumbs Carty said. “You can’t continue on this path of being irresponsible and doing nothing with your life, but causing trouble. Your behavior has to stop. You have no respect for the law,” she added, referring to Rivera’s lengthy criminal record, which dates back to 2010 and included such charges as burglary and stalking.
Departing slightly from the terms of the plea agreement, which recommended a one-year suspended prison sentence, Gumbs Carty handed down her punishment of one year with Rivera serving nine months’ incarceration, being placed on three months of supervised probation after her release from the Bureau of Corrections and paying court fees, fines and restitution to the victim. During her three-month probation, Rivera has to find a job and enter into a counseling program, Gumbs Carty further ordered.
A probable cause fact sheet prepared by Officer Ingrid Bukle stated that while the victim was inside his house taking a shower, he heard Rivera talking loudly and cursing. From his bathroom window, he could see Rivera walking around his vehicle several times.
When the man later went outside to check his vehicle, he saw that three of his tire valve caps were missing, his right front tire was deflated and his front license plate was missing. When police arrived on the scene after the man reported the incident, Rivera told them that she deflated his tire and ripped off his front license plate because he was parked on her property, Bukle wrote.