{"id":172154,"date":"2026-04-21T20:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/172154\/"},"modified":"2026-04-21T20:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T20:47:10","slug":"hearing-postponed-for-man-charged-in-deadly-berks-county-crash-nbc10-philadelphia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/172154\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearing postponed for man charged in deadly Berks County crash \u2013 NBC10 Philadelphia"},"content":{"rendered":"

A man charged in a crash that killed two Berks County firefighters<\/a> had his hearing pushed to next month as prosecutors await toxicology results.<\/p>\n

Alexander Sepulveda Rivera was handcuffed and shackled as two Pennsylvania state constables led him into the district court in Berks County on Tuesday, April 21. <\/p>\n

The 26-year-old appeared briefly before a judge on homicide and other charges for a crash on April 4 that killed Walnuttown fire chief Jeffory L. Buck and assistant fire chief Robert R. Shick Jr.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors allege Rivera was under the influence and behind the wheel of a Toyota Camry when he struck and killed the two men. They were riding an all-terrain vehicle on the shoulder of Route 222 in Richmond Township searching for a missing woman.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s wives and their children shared their grief with NBC10 at the fire station days after the crash: “It’s just going to be a horrible time for us.” <\/p>\n

The firefighter’s families were also inside the building Tuesday afternoon, but never entered the courtroom to hear the judge tell Rivera, through a translator, that his preliminary hearing is rescheduled until next month.<\/p>\n

After Rivera was led out of the room, the berks county assistant district attorney said they are still waiting for Rivera\u2019s toxicology results.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said that in the moments following the crash, he and his passenger ran from the scene but were captured a short time later.<\/p>\n

On the day he announced charges against the New York City man, Berks County District Attorney John Adams told NBC10 what Rivera told officers after his arrest.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHe said he fell asleep. And he admitted he smoked marijuana the same day. He was also found with a crack pipe and he admitted that crack pipe was his,” said Adams. <\/p>\n

Rivera\u2019s defense attorney declined to speak with NBC10 after the hearing. As of now, he is due back inside this building for his preliminary hearing on May 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man charged in a crash that killed two Berks County firefighters had his hearing pushed to next…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":172155,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,28,128,130,129],"class_list":["post-172154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172154","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=172154"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/172154\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/172155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=172154"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=172154"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=172154"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}