CHI OUR REGION
John Chambliss I Managing Editor
770-718-3407 I news@gainesvilletimes.com
The Times, Gainesville, Georgia
Midweek Edition-April 3-4, 2024
Woman charged with
Sosebee
BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
Editor’s note: This pub
lished in a previous E-Paper
edition and is being provided
here for print-only readers.
A Gainesville mom was
charged with murder after
her 13-year-old son died from
a fentanyl and xylazine over
dose in June, according to
authorities.
Holly Deanna Sosebee, 30,
was charged with second-
degree murder and second-
degree child cruelty. She was
booked Friday, March 29, in to
the Hall County Jail, where she
murder in son’s overdose
remains with no bond.
The Hall County Sheriff's
Office began investigating after
Landon Nicholas Sosebee, 13,
was found dead June 8, 2023,
in his Lee Street home.
Because of his age, Sos-
ebee's body was sent to the
Georgia Bureau of Investiga
tion crime lab for an autopsy.
The autopsy determined Land-
on's cause of death was “com
bined toxic effects of fentanyl
and xylazine,” according to the
Sheriff's Office.
“The investigation deter
mined the illegal narcotics
belonged to his mother, and she
had left them in an unsecured
area where they were easily
accessible to the victim,” the
Sheriff's Office wrote in a news
release.
While murder carries a
life sentence with at least 30
years before parole eligibil
ity, second-degree murder has
a mandatory minimum prison
sentence of 10 years but does
not exceed 30 years.
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New Gainesville High Principal Roberto Rivera was most recently the school’s head wrestling coach and oversaw the ninth
grade.
New Gainesville High principal rises from humble beginnings
BY BEN ANDERSON
banderson@gainesvilletimes.com
Editor’s note: This published
in a previous E-Paper edition
and is being provided here for
piint-only readers.
At just 15 years old, Roberto
Rivera was on his own and home
less, crashing with friends and
living out of a car he had bought
after working all summer at
McDonald's.
“I was able to buy a little
car, and that kind of helped me
because that ended up being
where I spent some nights,”
Rivera said.
After a few weeks, a family
kindly took him in.
“Wonderful family,” he said. “I
probably owe them my success
all the way to where I'm at now.”
Now, as Gainesville High
School's next principal, Rivera
wants to pay it forward.
“I always remember the folks
that lent a hand,” he said.
Rivera will officially take the
helm when current principal
Jamie Green steps down at the
end of the school year in May to
take a teaching job in Brazil.
Rivera, who is currently the
head wrestling coach and 9th
grade assistant principal, was
chosen to lead the high school in
part because he is already a famil
iar face on campus.
In fact, it was students' voices
that rang the loudest during the
search process.
“To be perfectly honest, both
times the students are the ones
who have guided us to the next
leader of Gainesville High
School,” Superintendent Jeremy
Williams said, referring to the hir
ing of both Green and Rivera.
“They were able to ask ques
tions of Mr. Rivera, and that
ranged anywhere from academ
ics to how's he going to balance
the importance of every club and
every extracurricular activity and
things like that,” Williams said.
“It was just great to hear them
engage with their new principal.”
Green said students trust and
respect Rivera.
‘And that’s what teenagers
want,” Green said. “You can say
a lot of things about this genera
tion, but they are keenly aware of
folks that say things and don’t do
things. That is not Roberto Rivera.
If Roberto Rivera says he’s going
to do it, it’s going to get done.”
The youngest of 13 children,
Rivera, 51, was raised in the
housing projects by a single
mother who moved to the U.S.
mainland from Puerto Rico in the
early 1970s. He has never met his
father.
Rivera was bom in New York
City, moved to Puerto Rico when
he was about 8 years old, back to
New York City around 12, then to
Delaware when he was 15.
All of that moving around, he
said, has turned his early boyhood
into a blur.
“You know, I tell folks, and this
is completely true ... I have no
recollection of my early school
years, I just don’t,” he said.
Rivera used the phrase “hum
ble beginnings” to describe his
upbringing, and although he was
reluctant to share certain details,
he believes his background will
allow him to connect with stu
dents and inspire them.
“I want to use my experiences
and everything that I’ve been
through to just be a beacon of
light,” he said. “Some kids may
not exactly know every little
detail about me, and that’s not
always necessary ... but I think I
see a lot of myself in some of the
kids that we have here.”
Likewise, many of Gaines
ville High School's 2,400 stu
dents may also see themselves in
Rivera, who will be the first His
panic principal in the 132-year
history of the high school.
Alexa Mondragon, a senior
whose family immigrated from
Mexico, said her initial impres
sion of Rivera was that he was
uptight and strict. But since join
ing the wrestling team earlier this
year, she has discovered a softer
side to Rivera, noting that he
helped connect her with scholar
ships designated for immigrant
students like her.
“He kind of understood my sit
uation,” Mondragon said. “I feel
like he will help not only the peo
ple that are already coming here
and getting a good education, but
people that come as Dreamers,”
she said, referring to people who
immigrate to the U.S. as children
and remain undocumented.
About 62% of the Gainesville
City School System's 8,000 stu
dents are Hispanic, and roughly
one-third of all students are
English learners — the highest
percentage of any public school
district in the state. Additionally,
about 70% of students qualify for
free or reduced lunch (the metric
used to measure a district's pov
erty rate), which is about 10%
higher than the state average.
“Regardless of what upbring
ing you have ... your life can be
better,” Rivera said. “You just
gotta dream, and you gotta make
sure that you have plans and goals
and aspirations. And, of course,
you gotta be lucky with having a
couple of people in your life that
(are) going to guide you.”
And Rivera has been just that
person for a couple of other stu
dents on the wrestling team, both
on and off the mat.
“He's made sure that I became
more than just a great wrestler,”
said Erick Willock, a senior.
“He's always keeping up with
things outside of just wrestling.
He keeps up with my academ
ics, he keeps up with how I am at
home, always asks me questions
about that.”
Christian Rosales, also a senior,
said Rivera convinced him to stay
on the wrestling team when he
felt like quitting and has since
become an important mentor in
his life.
“He pulled me aside, he moti
vated me,” Rosales said. “I felt
like not only in the sport but coach
himself built my character and
definitely shaped my mentality,
and I feel like he made me a better
young man.”
Rivera's own development as
a young man was likewise forged
in the wrestling room. Rivera
started wrestling as a high school
freshman in Delaware, where his
coach quickly became the male
role model he never had.
“When I met my coach and I
got involved in wrestling, I mean,
this was a stand up guy, this was
somebody who wore a shirt and
tie and spoke correctly and took
care of his family,” Rivera said.
But just as Rivera was begin
ning to find his footing, his
mother told him that she was
moving the family back to New
York City. Rivera couldn't bear
the thought of packing up and
starting over again.
So he didn't.
“I was kind of thriving a little
bit at school in terms of athleti
cally ... and I made a conscious
decision not to go back with her,”
Rivera said. From that point on,
he said, “I kind of raised myself.”
“I could see how his back
ground has led to the kind of
leader that he is,” Green, the cur
rent principal, said. “He under
stands that students that come
from a variety of backgrounds
where they have obstacles and
challenges that are not typical still
need that firm but fair leadership,
because he experienced that and
had coaches and mentors and
teachers in his life that made a
difference.”
“Also what's really important,
I think, and maybe what a lot of
people don’t realize, is Roberto
has raised a family of five who
are all incredibly successful,”
Green added. “He’s got college
athletes, all of his kids took dual
enrollment, advanced placement.
... To me, it’s really exciting to
have somebody who’s come from
humble beginnings but who also
has set the bar high for his own
family and understands that we
have an obligation to do that for
all students.”
Rivera says he is the first per
son in his family to graduate high
school or college.
He has an associate's degree
from Southwestern Illinois Col
lege; a bachelor's in Spanish
language and literature from
Northern Illinois University; a
master's in educational leader
ship and administration from
Kennesaw State University; and
a specialist degree in curriculum
and instruction from Lincoln
Memorial University.
Rivera moved to Georgia in
2001. He taught for more than
16 years as a Spanish teacher and
wrestling coach in Cobb County,
then worked as an assistant prin
cipal at Marietta High School and
North Paulding High School. He
was hired as the head wrestling
coach at Gainesville High School
in 2019 and took on an additional
role as the ninth-grade assistant
principal in 2021.
When Green announced earlier
this year he would be stepping
down, he encouraged Rivera to
apply for the position.
“I felt that he would be a great
leader for the school,” Green said.
“In everything that we've asked
him to do here over five years,
he's had great success.”
“Eve put Roberto in some
pretty difficult situations,” he
laughed. “And he has very
quickly, very effectively remedied
any challenges that he's faced.”
Rivera said becoming the prin
cipal of Gainesville High School
is the pinnacle of his career and a
dream come true.
“My goal has always been to
try to reach principalship. As an
AP (assistant principal), you're
kind of restricted with your own
department,” he said. Now, he
looks forward to “being able
to put things in place that can
affect an entire building, entire
community.”
In what little free time he has,
Rivera likes to spend time with
his wife, his five children and his
two grandchildren.
Williams, the superintendent,
explained the district's search
process and the decision to hire
Rivera.
He said each of the district's
eight schools has a governance
council made up of parents, staff
and business partners. Applica
tions for the position closed Feb.
9, and over the next week the
governance council whittled the
list down to six candidates for an
initial round of interviews. Three
of those candidates made it to the
second and final round of inter
views, which is when Williams
and his cabinet joined the process.
“We also want to incorporate
our student body as much as we
can as well as our staff mem
bers, and so I worked with Mr.
Green to get about a dozen of
those students and to get about a
dozen or so staff members that the
three finalists were able to inter
view with,” Williams said. “And
through that process, everybody
was unanimous in their support
for Mr. Rivera.”
“It became very clear that the
kids connected with him, they
already knew him in many ways
because, being the ninth grade
administrator, he's already built a
lot of relationships with our fami
lies,” he said. “Mr. Rivera knows
our community, he loves our stu
dents and he'll be the best person
to lead us in this next chapter for
Gainesville High School.”
Man gets
sentence
in $22M
drug case
BY NICK WATSON
nwatson@gainesvilletimes.com
Editor’s note: This published in
a previous E-Paper edition and is
being provided here for print-only
readers.
After a day
of work pres
sure washing and
cleaning floors,
Candido Rangel-
Garcia, 47, agreed
to give his room-
Rangel-Garcia mate a ride.
That Dec. 30,
2022, ride ended up costing him
the next five years of his life, as
authorities busted him and Adolfo
Solorio-Garcia with an estimated
$22 million of liquid methamphet-
amine in gas cans.
Rangel-Garcia was sentenced
Tuesday, March 26, to 57 months in
federal prison after pleading guilty
to possession with intent to distrib
ute meth and fentanyl.
After prison, U.S. District Court
Judge Steve Jones imposed three
years of supervised release for
Rangel-Garcia if he is not deported.
Law enforcement started inves
tigating after getting information
on a Mexican-based phone number
belonging to “a source of supply of
large quantities of controlled sub
stances,” according to a sentenc
ing memo filed by Rangel-Garcia's
attorney Molly Parmer.
An undercover agent started
recording calls with this source,
who told the agent about a deliv
ery of liquid meth en route to Hall
County.
“The source of supply told the
undercover agent that he was to
steal the methamphetamine from
the couriers,” according to Parm
er's memo.
Parmer wrote that Rangel-Garcia
had “never knowingly transported
controlled substances” before that
day, as he had helped Solorio-Gar
cia run errands in the past.
A Hall County Sheriff's Office
deputy pulled over Rangel-Garcia's
Toyota Tacoma Dec. 30, 2022, at
Mountain View and McEver roads.
The investigator testified at a prob
able cause hearing about seeing gas
cans in the backseat and truckbed
but not smelling any gas.
Field tests came back positive for
meth and fentanyl, according to the
officer's testimony.
“Mr. Rangel-Garcia had no
knowledge about where the drugs
came from nor who else was
involved,” Parmer wrote. “He had
no involvement in planning or
organizing the criminal activity. He
had absolutely no decision-mak
ing authority nor did he influence
the exercise of decision-making
authority. Both he and Mr. Solorio
were fungible; just couriers follow
ing instructions.”
Rangel-Garcia grew up in Mex
ico and moved to California at age
19 “in hopes of securing employ
ment and supporting his family
financially,” Parmer wrote.
“He returned to Mexico after
working in the United States and
stayed in his home country for
many years, harvesting papaya,
lemons and grapefruit,” Parmer
wrote.
Rangel-Garcia returned to the
U.S. three months before he was
arrested with similar hopes of a
better job.
Parmer requested 46 months in
prison, which was 11 months less
than what Solorio-Garcia received.
Parmer did not immediately
return a request for comment from
The Times.
