GREENFIELD — She settled into the chair on the witness stand and opened her notebook, preparing to read a letter she wrote to the court.
“Dear Judge,” the girl began in a small voice, starring down at the pages in front of her, as Hancock County Court Commissioner Cody Coombs looked on.
She felt mad, she said, and she’s often sad. It’s hard to understand why the man sitting nearby at the defendant’s table – 33-year-old Jonathan Rivera – had chosen her as his victim. She wishes it had never happened. That he’d never tried to touch her. She wishes he could be locked away forever, she said.
Coombs, having previously found Rivera guilty of attempted child molest, ordered this week that the man be locked in prison for the greatest amount of time advised by law.
Rivera will spend six years in an Indiana Department of Correction prison. Upon his release, he’ll be required to complete two years of probation. He’ll register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.
Rivera, of New Jersey, was charged last year after a young girl came forward to tell police she’d once woken up with Rivera lying next to her as he tried to touch her under her clothes.
As she resisted his advances by pushing his hand away from her, he said, “Please, please, please,” she told a judge during a bench trial last month.
The girl said she repeatedly told Rivera “no,” and pushed him away from her. Eventually he left her alone, she testified.
Coombs presided over the trial in Hancock County Superior Court 1. He found Rivera guilty of a single Level 4 felony count of attempt to commit child molest.
Rivera denied the girl’s accusations during the trial and still maintains his innocence, his attorney Holly Lyons of Greenfield said in court this week. He intends to appeal his conviction and sentence, she told the judge.
But court records show Rivera agreed to plead guilty in the case twice before backing out of deals with prosecutors, resulting in the matter being set for bench trial.
The girl’s mother told the judge during trial she’d met Rivera online and eventually began dating him. Though he lived in New Jersey, he’d often come to visit and would stay with her and her three children at their home in Beech Grove.
Rivera saw himself has a “father figure” to the children, the woman testified, and he was very affectionate toward her two daughters.
After their breakup, she became concerned the man might have harmed one of her daughters. Her worry prompted her to ask the girls if Rivera had ever done anything to make them feel uncomfortable.
That’s when one of the girls confided Rivera had once tried to touch her while at an overnight gather at a relative’s home in McCordsville, the woman told the judge. She reported the disclosure to police.
The young victim and her mother addressed the court during Rivera’s sentencing hearing Thursday. Both asked that Rivera receive the strictest punishment possible.
The girl’s mother told the judge her daughter will forever have to carry the memory of being violated by Rivera.
Locking the man away would give the girl time to heal, her mother said, but adding “no amount of time will be enough for him to serve.”
Rivera pleaded with the judge for leniency. He called himself dependable, hospitable and a family man.
“Those who know me … will tell you I’m not a bad person,” he said.