Death Sentence Upheld For Newtown Cop Killer

NEWTOWN, PA — The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a death sentence for a man who killed a Newtown police officer 16 years ago.

Robert Flor, now 54, killed Officer Brian Gregg on Sept. 29, 2005, after being taken to St. Mary’s Hospital for blood-alcohol testing in a suspected DUI case. While at the hospital, Flor grabbed another officer’s gun and started shooting, killing Gregg and wounding the other officer and a hospital employee.

Flor pleaded guilty in October 2006 to first-degree murder and entered a no-contest plea to 39 other counts, including attempted murder, aggravated assault and robbery. A jury sentenced Flor to death the following month.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed Flor’s death sentence in 2010, leading Flor to petition for post-conviction relief, arguing jurors were not told he is intellectually disabled. That would make him ineligible for the death penalty.

In his appeal, Flor also argued the jury was tainted by pretrial publicity, that he received ineffective counsel from his lawyers, and that prosecutors committed misconduct throughout the sentencing process.

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear Flor’s appeal in 2011.

Bucks County Judge Alan Rubenstein rejected Flor’s claims of intellectual disability and denied his petition for post-conviction relief in 2018. Flor then appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which on Wednesday affirmed Rubenstein’s ruling.

“We find no merit to (Flor’s) claims of prosecutorial misconduct, and counsel was not ineffective for failing to litigate them,” Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Sallie Mundy wrote in the court's opinion.

Bucks County District Attorney Matt Weintraub said Wednesday that Flor “has been trying to get off death row ever since” he was convicted 15 years ago of killing Gregg and shooting Officer James Warunek and hospital employee Joseph Epp.

"All he offers are excuses,” Weintraub said. “We will meet him at every attempt he makes to evade his death sentence, which he earned."

Flor was also sentenced to serve 65 to 130 years for the attempted murders of Warunek and Epp, as well as robbery, assault and a slew of other charges of which he was convicted.

Gregg had been working as a full-time officer for the borough for less than a year before he was killed, having previously worked part-time.

The Newtown Bypass was renamed in 2014 in his honor. It is now called the Officer Brian Gregg Memorial Highway.