A convicted killer with several prior busts landed back in cuffs this week when eagle-eyed NYPD cops spotted him drinking alcohol in his car – and found a loaded gun inside, police said Friday.
Anthony Rivera, 46, of the Bronx, was guzzling booze inside his red 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander parked at the corner of West 128th Street and Eighth Avenue in Harlem around 9:10 p.m. Thursday when officers approached his car, cops said.
The cops searched the SUV and found a loaded SCCY CPX-2 pistol, brass knuckles and a stash of drugs, including what appeared to be crack cocaine, police said.
Rivera – who was released from state prison in 2018 after serving time on a manslaughter conviction – was arrested and charged with criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a controlled substance, cops said.
He has seven prior arrests, with the most serious charge connected to the deadly July 14, 2007, stabbing of David Fuentes, 30, inside a University Heights home, police said.
The deadly knifing stemmed from a prior dispute, cops said.
Fuentes, a maintenance worker at Intermediate School 303, vanished after telling his family he wanted to take his 6-year-old son swimming, but first needed to stop at the store, The New York Daily News reported at the time.
He was spotted going into a basement apartment down the block from his home — and was never seen alive again.
Fuentes’ lifeless body was found in a pool of blood inside the basement, according to the report.
Rivera – one of two suspects arrested in that case – pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter in March 2011 and was sentenced to 11 years behind bars, according to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office.
He began his sentence at the Queensboro Correctional facility that April, and was conditionally released in December 2016 based on a state statute that applies to all inmates except those serving life sentences, according to state Department of Corrections records.
It wasn’t immediately clear why, but Rivera was sent back into custody in January 2018, and then released again in March of that year, the records show.
Rivera was then freed on community supervision, which expired in December 2021.
He previously served time for possession and sale of drugs on and off between 2001 and 2006 – a period during which he was twice released and returned to custody, according to the records.
Three of the arrests on Rivera’s record are for drug possession with intent to sell, police said.
He was also arrested on an armed robbery charge in March of 1997, for allegedly breaking the elbow of a cop who tried to arrest him for drugs in March 2006, and for bringing contraband into Rikers Island while he was held there in May 2008, cops said.
His arraignment on his newest case was pending Friday.
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