PHOTO COURTESY OF THE REUVENI FAMILY
Gabrielle Reuveni
Surprise plea in jogger’s death; admission of guilt brings tears of relief to Paramus family
JULY 10, 2015, 12:54 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, JULY 11, 2015, 12:30 PM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF AND CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Gabrielle Reuveni’s parents had waited almost three years for this moment: an admission by the man who killed their daughter that he was under the influence of painkillers when his pickup swerved off a Pennsylvania road, striking a young woman who aspired to a future of helping others.
Philip Cise, 51, stood in the chambers of a Pennsylvania judge on Friday, even as potential jurors were assembled in the courtroom for jury selection to hear the case against him, pleading guilty to homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, the most serious charge that he faced.
Reuveni, 20, Paramus High School’s 2010 valedictorian and a member of her university track team, had been running along a road near her family’s vacation home in the Poconos on July 14, 2012, when, witnesses say, Cise, a Morris County man with a long history of mental illness and minor criminal offenses, swerved for no apparent reason. Authorities said he told them he had taken painkillers obtained from a friend
