BEAUMONT, Texas — A Southeast Texas man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after pleading guilty to sexually abusing two young siblings.
William Humberton Rivera Sr., 58, was sentenced Wednesday to four life sentences by 252nd District Court Judge Raquel West. The sentences will run consecutively and the continuous abuse charges will not allow him to be paroled.
He had pleaded guilty in November 2021 to two charges of continuous sex abuse of a child and two charges of indecency with a child.
He had no plea agreement and elected to be sentenced by the judge according to a news release from the Jefferson County District Attorney's office.
Rivera wrote letters from jail to the victims and their mother in which he blamed them for the abuse he committed, prosecutor Kimberly Duchamp said during court on Wednesday.
In those handwritten letters he confessed to abusing both children but showed no remorse the news release said.
Duchamp specifically mentioned an 11-page letter that Rivera wrote to the children’s mother.
After one child made an outcry both told police of years of sexual abuse starting when they were 9 and 11-years-old the release said.
When Rivera abused them he paid them according to a price list he created the release said.
“This one's left me a little speechless, not just because the facts of the case are so bad, but the defendant’s attitude is something I've never seen in the hundreds and hundreds of defendants I've dealt with who have hurt and abused children,” Duchamp said during court today.
Both victims made statements during Rivera’s sentencing with one speaking in a hushed tone about how the abuse had affected both she and her mother.
The other spoke of being fearful that something like this could happen to them again.
The abuse continued for one victim for roughly six years and the other for about two and a half years Duchamp told 12News.
The attorney for Rivera did not make a statement after the victims made their statements.
Rivera had his attorney deliver a letter to Judge West before his sentencing in which he continued to blame his victims Duchamp told 12News. The letter was written days before his sentencing.
While announcing Rivera’s sentence Judge West noted that Rivera’s case is "one of the worst.”
“I don't know and we won't ever know what happened to or caused Mr. Rivera, number one, to do what he did, but to have the attitude and the true perception from the letters that somehow this is not his fault when this is 100% his fault,” Judge West said.
West then went on to assure the victims and their mother that none of the abuse was their fault but was only Rivera’s fault.
Speaking to the defendant Judge West then said, “there's not an ounce of mercy that you should be given Mr. Rivera."