Pennsylvania Gambler Who Used Skull Mask in Fatal Robbery Gets Life
Posted on: July 28, 2025, 03:58h.
Last updated on: July 28, 2025, 03:58h.
- Clerk shot after $14K robbery in convenience store
- Convict wore skull mask, left clerk dying but calling 911
- Store faces lawsuit over unsafe illegal gaming operation
A gambler and local drug dealer from Hazleton, Pa., has been sentenced to life without the possibility of parole for murdering a convenience store clerk for $14K while wearing a chilling mask with white skull teeth.
The sentence handed down to Jafet De Jesus Rodriguez on Thursday means the 44-year-old will almost certainly die behind bars.
Rodriguez was a frequent player of gaming machines at Craig’s Food Mart in Hazleton, where Ashokkumar Patel had taken a job just one week before he was killed.
Patel, a father of three and a legal immigrant who was working to support his family in India, was shoved into a closet and shot dead by Rodriguez, apparently in cold blood, according to prosecutors.
‘Senseless’ Crime
Previous trial testimony revealed that Rodriguez lost a large amount of money gambling at the store, although he’d also walked away with about $3K in winnings weeks before the robbery on December 12, 2020.
Prosecutors argued that was how he knew a large amount of cash was kept on the premises for instant payouts – with little security.
Before sentencing, Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Vough emphasized the senselessness and brutality of the crime.
Needless. Senseless. You can use a number of words to describe what happened to Mr. Patel,” Vough said, as reported by The Citizens’ Voice. “You took someone’s life for money.”
The judge also described how Patel was able to crawl to the phone to call 911 before he died, “gurgling … because you shot his tongue off,” The Voice reported.
Rodriguez was arrested in January 2021 after police searched his home and found multiple cellphones and nearly $3K in cash.
GPS and cellphone data tracked one of those devices moving between his residence and the crime scene shortly before the murder.
Police also searched a carwash owned by Rodriguez where they found clothes that matched the distinctive garb worn by the assailant during the robbery – a red and orange sweatshirt and black gloves, along with the skull mask.
Forensic analysis of a bloodstain on one item of clothing showed a DNA mix from both Rodriguez and the victim.
Rodriguez was convicted in June by a Luzerne County jury of first-degree murder, robbery, and theft.
Wrongful Death Suit
In 2022, Patel’s family filed a civil wrongful death suit against the store’s owner, Sunoco and their affiliated companies, and the two firms that supplied and manufactured the gaming machines, Georgia-based Pace-O-Matic and Miele manufacturing of Williamsburg, Virginia.
The civil lawsuit argues the defendants turned the convenience store into an “unsafe mini-casino” – albeit one that operated without the security measures that are expected of legal gaming operations.
The plaintiffs also claim the skill gaming machines are illegal, a point that remains unresolved under Pennsylvania law and is the subject of ongoing litigation.
The civil trial is scheduled to begin November 3 in Philadelphia against Pace-O-Matic and Miele, having already settled against the other defendants.
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