The boyfriend of a woman who is accused, along with her daughter, of strangling 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez and cutting her baby out of her womb was sentenced on Monday to four years in prison for his role in the 2019 case that shocked the nation.
Piotr Bobak, 44, pleaded guilty on Monday to a felony count of obstruction of justice and elected to proceed straight to sentencing. He was originally charged with felony counts of concealment of a homicide, concealment of a death and obstruction of justice.
“Not a day goes by that I do not regret my involvement in this horrible crime,” Bobak said during the hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas handed down the sentence, choosing to abide by the terms of the plea agreement. Because of day-for-day credit and time already served awaiting trial, Bobak likely has less than four months left to serve, Chiampas noted.
Bobak was the boyfriend of Clarisa Figueroa, who, along with her daughter, Desiree, is accused of hatching a plan to kill Ochoa, steal the baby she was carrying and pass the boy off as the elder Figueroa’s son. Ochoa-Lopez’s son, Yovani Yadiel Lopez, died at a hospital in June 2019 at the age of seven weeks. The two women are charged with murder and other felonies in the slaying.
During his hearing, Bobak said he had no prior knowledge of what the women planned to do, but used “poor judgment” after the fact when cleaning up the crime scene.
“If I had known about the actions … I would have done everything I could to prevent it,” Bobak said.
He wore glasses and an orange jumpsuit, and appeared emotional when speaking about the attack.
His attorney, Jeff Steinback, said Bobak desperately sought a family and a child of his own, and therefore, was the “perfect dupe” for Clarisa Figueroa, who pretended to be pregnant with Bobak’s child.
“He believed that child was his child,” Steinback said.
Ochoa-Lopez was nine months’ pregnant when she disappeared, last seen on April 23, 2019, leaving her high school in the Little Village neighborhood.
The Figueroas lured the young mother to their home on Chicago’s Southwest Side that day with promises of free baby clothes, prosecutors alleged. Clarisa Figueroa strangled the teen with a cable, according to prosecutors, and sliced open her abdomen from side to side, removed the baby from the womb and placed him inside a bucket.
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The elder Figueroa then called 911 and announced that on her own she had delivered a baby who was not breathing, prosecutors said. As paramedics arrived, she was holding the baby with its placenta and umbilical cord attached. Both were rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center.
About two weeks after Ochoa-Lopez was last seen, detectives investigating her disappearance learned the teen had gone to the Figueroa home the day she disappeared. They went to the home and were told by Desiree Figueroa that her mother had recently had a baby. They found Ochoa-Lopez’s car parked nearby.
Detectives visited Clarisa Figueroa at the hospital, but she denied that the teen came to her home the day she disappeared. Police eventually used DNA to determine Clarisa Figueroa was not the baby’s mother.
When detectives arrived to search the Figueroa home, Bobak was outside cleaning a rug with bleach and a hose, prosecutors said during a bond hearing in 2019. When Bobak saw the officers, he dropped the bleach and hose, and walked away, they said.
Ochoa-Lopez’s decaying body was found in a garbage can outside the Figueroa home Tuesday with the coaxial cables used to strangle her still around her neck, prosecutors said.
At Monday’s hearing, Assistant State’s Attorney Andrew Varga said Bobak “knowingly” began to clean the premises and remove items when officers served a search warrant on May 14, 2019. Varga, though, said Bobak was “intentionally misled” by Clarisa Figueroa about the baby.
Family members of Ochoa-Lopez were not in court on Monday, but were aware of the plea deal, prosecutors said.
“I’m so sorry for the loss the family has experienced,” Bobak said. “I regret every minute.”