The getaway driver who fled to Pennsylvania after a botched gang hit that took the life of 7-month-old Kaori Patterson-Moore was returned to Brooklyn on Tuesday, where he proclaimed his innocence, officials said.
“I didn’t do it,” Matthew Rodriguez told reporters as he was led out of the 90th Precinct stationhouse in handcuffs to be arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court.
“I didn’t know that was going to happen. I promise I didn’t know he was going to do that. I didn’t know he was going to pull the trigger.”
NYPD; Courtesy of Lianna Moore
The NYPD released surveillance footage of the gunman and his accomplice in the stray bullet shooting of Kaori Patterson-Moore (right) in a stroller in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Wednesday. (NYPD; Courtesy of Lianna Moore)
Rodriguez, 18, fled to Monroe County, Pa., following the April 1 shooting near Humboldt and Moore Sts. in East Williamsburg, cops say. A stray bullet passed through little Kaori’s head and then grazed her 2-year-old brother’s back, cops said.
Cops caught up with Rodriguez in Pennsylvania two days after the shooting. After waiving extradition, he was brought back to Brooklyn early Tuesday, where he was fingerprinted and charged with murder, attempted murder, criminal possession of a weapon, assault, hindering prosecution and tampering with a witness, officials said.
A grand jury indicted both Rodriguez and accused shooter Amuri Greene on murder charges last week.
Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News
Police secure the scene of an abandoned scooter on Warsoff Place near Park Ave. in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, after Kaori Patterson-Moore, a 7-month-old girl, was shot approximately one mile away on Humboldt St. and Moore St. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Rodriguez was operating the scooter that Greene was firing from the back of when little Kaori was killed. Greene later confessed that he was aiming at Kaori’s father when he accidentally hit the baby, according to prosecutors.
The teen crashed the scooter a few blocks from the shooting, throwing both himself and Greene from their getaway vehicle. Greene, 21, broke his leg in the crash and was taken to the hospital, where cops arrested him for murder, attempted murder and other charges.
Matthew Rodriguez is pictured in police custody outside the NYPD’s 90th Precinct stationhouse in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Tuesday, April 14, 2026, after being charged in the death of Kaori Patterson-Moore. (Gardiner Anderson / New York Daily News)
Rodriguez fled the city and headed to Pennsylvania, cops said.
On Monday night, more than 150 mourners gathered at the Lawrence H. Woodward Funeral Home in Bedford-Stuyvesant to pay respects to Kaori’s family at a wake for the baby. A brass Minnie Mouse plaque on the casket displayed her name and read, “Our Little Angel.”