By The newspaper
23 Jul 2024, 11:11 AM EDT
Luis Rivera was extradited from Puerto Rico to Connecticut, where he faces up to 50 years in prison after pleading guilty Wednesday to sexually assaulting three minor cousins he had been babysitting in the 1990s.
The 58-year-old is also a suspect in the fall 2001 disappearance of toddler Bianca Lebron in Bridgeport. “Tell us what you did with Bianca,” mother Carmelita Torres shouted from the back of the courtroom as bailiffs led Rivera away Wednesday. “Tell us what you did with my baby.”
Rivera is already a convicted sex offender, having been convicted in 1997 of assaulting a 13-year-old girl in a Seaside Park bathroom in Bridgeport and sentenced to three years in prison.
On the morning of November 7, 2001, 10-year-old Bianca Lebron was waiting in line to enter Elias Howe School on Clinton Avenue when she told two classmates and a teacher that she was leaving to go with her “uncle” on a shopping trip. #MissingChild #missing pic.twitter.com/YWXkF6mdZZ
— Find Our Missing (@FindOurMissing_) February 20, 2024
Outside the courtroom, a crowd, all wearing T-shirts with Lebron’s image, continued to harangue Rivera, who showed no emotion as he was led away, he described. CT Post.
Lebron was 10 when she disappeared on November 7, 2001 while waiting to enter the former Elias Howe School on Clinton Avenue in Bridgeport. The girl told her classmates and a teacher that “her uncle” was taking her shopping and invited friends to join her, but they refused. She was later seen getting into a car driven by a man described as “Hispanic.” Relatives later told authorities that Bianca did not actually have an uncle.
Although the investigation continues in Connecticut and Puerto Rico, there is still no information on his whereabouts. While police investigated Rivera, they said they had no probable cause to connect him to Lebron’s disappearance.
Rivera pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault and three counts of risk of injury to a child on Wednesday before Connecticut Superior Court Judge Tracy Lee Dayton.
Supervising Assistant State Attorney Tiffany Lockshier told the judge that Rivera is accused of assaulting three cousins: a boy and two girls, now ages 33, 35 and 37.
Rivera was arrested in January in Puerto Rico as a fugitive from justice and extradited to Bridgeport to face the sexual assault charges. Under the plea agreement, he will be sentenced on Sept. 27 to 50 years in prison, to be suspended after serving 25 years and followed by 35 years of probation. “Do you agree that the facts as presented by the prosecutor are correct?” the judge asked him. “Yes, your honor,” Rivera replied.
According to arrest warrant affidavits, all three victims separately disclosed to police in 2022 that they had been sexually assaulted by Rivera, a family friend, at homes where Rivera lived on Main St. and Goodsell St.
On one occasion, the affidavit says, the woman, now 35, told police that Rivera had taken her to the men’s bathroom in Seaside Park, where he placed a rock against the door and then assaulted her while holding his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming.
Also missing for more than four years is the Mexican-born girl Dulce María Alavez, last seen in a park in New Jersey when she was 5 years old, in September 2019. A reward of $75,000 dollars and the work of the FBI – one of the most advanced investigative forces in the world – have not been enough to find her or at least find out what happened to her.
If you are a victim or suspect that someone is being abused, especially if you are a minor or an elderly person:
I looked for help
- Call 911, 988 or (800)-942-6906.
- Text “WELL” to 65173.
- Check information at https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/es/ and www.988lineadevida.org