An Oak Forest, Illinois, man was sentenced Friday to a 51/2-year sentence for attacking his pregnant wife and slapping her baby.
Jose Rivera, Jr., 26, signed a plea agreement April 13 for Level 5 felony Domestic Battery with Bodily Injury to a Pregnant Woman and Level 6 felony Domestic Battery on a Person Less than 14 Years Old.
The sentence calls for him to serve two years in the Indiana Department of Corrections, 1 1/2 years in Lake County Community Corrections and two years on probation.
Crown Point Police were called Sept. 25, 2022 to an apartment on the 900 block of Heritage Court.
Genesis Rivera said in court Friday she was six months pregnant with his son. She was in the shower when heard her daughter, 1, cry in a way she hadn’t before. Jose Rivera was not the girl’s father, she said.
When she flipped on the nanny cam, she saw Rivera harshly putting the child in the crib and slapping her twice.
She went in the room, screaming at him and grabbed the child to leave, according to court documents.
Jose Rivera pushed her against the wall, telling her to “put the baby down.”
He punched her “at least ten times” in the face and back of the head, according to the affidavit.
Genesis told the court she managed to grab the child and run barefoot out of the apartment.
At the hospital she got about a half-dozen staples for a cut on her head.
She asked Judge Gina Jones to give Rivera the maximum sentence so his “next girlfriend” and her kids wouldn’t go through the same thing.
Jose Rivera said he had “remorse” for the parties involved.
“I do hold myself accountable since that day,” he said.
Deputy Prosecutor Jessica Arnold said the nanny cam video only caught a “small glimpse” of their abuse that night.
He had filed a police report in Oak Lawn and tried to cast himself on social media posts as the “victim.”
She asked for a 5 1/2 year maximum sentence under the plea.
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Defense lawyer John Maksimovich noted he had no criminal history and was trying to finish a degree in psychology. His father had recently died when this happened.
It was a “bad day,” the lawyer said.
Jones told Rivera his answers in court paperwork were “very indicative” of someone dealing with domestic battery impulses.
It’s “crystal clear,” she said.
Jail wouldn’t address that, Jones said. Ultimately, he needed to work on himself.
In sentencing, she said he had no “remorse.”
“I don’t like that my hands are tied” with a sentence capped at 5 1/2 years, she said, before crafting the split sentence.
Rivera is also ordered to go to a substance abuse program, anger management and a batterer’s intervention program.
He is also ordered to pay $4,000 to Genesis Rivera.