Harvard man sentenced to 5 years in prison for abusing minor, must register as sex offender for life

A 37-year-old Harvard man continued to maintain his innocence in court Wednesday as he was sentenced to five years in prison for two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse against a child.

McHenry County Judge Michael Coppedge found J. Santos Nova-Rivera guilty of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a child younger than 13 following a bench trial in April but not guilty of the more serious charges initially filed against him.

Had he been found guilty of the Class X charge of predatory criminal sexual assault, he faced up to 30 years in prison. Coppedge said, as a judge hearing the case in a bench trial, rather than in a jury trial, he had authority of finding him guilty of a lesser charge.

Nova-Rivera will receive credit for time served in the county jail of 860 days, and under the state’s truth-in-sentencing guidelines, he will serve 50% of the five-year sentence. That means he will serve about two months in prison, Coppedge said.

He was also sentenced to a year of mandatory supervised release and is required to register as a sex offender. He would have had to pay $1,180 in fines and fees but Coppedge stayed this judgement, meaning Nova-Rivera wouldn’t have to pay unless the judge decided otherwise.

In court Wednesday, through a Spanish-speaking interpreter, Nova-Rivera insisted he is innocent and asked Coppedge what he would do if ever in his position.

“I have been incarcerated for something I have not done,” he said. “My family needs me. I supported them. If I am not with them, they are not eating. They don’t feel well.”

To the child’s family, he said, “God help them. What they are doing is wrong. I am in your hands.”

In finding Nova-Rivera guilty of the lesser Class 2 felonies, Coppedge said the state did not prove “direct contact,” as the predatory offense is written. Coppedge said he found him to be guilty of inappropriately touching the child over her clothes and that he did not believe it was an accident.

The potential sentence for this offense was between three and seven years in prison.

Nova-Rivera is accused of inappropriately touching the child in 2015 and 2016 when she was nine or 10 years old, prosecutors said during the trial.

Nova-Rivera still faces charges of criminal sexual assault of a second child. She would have been between the ages of 11 and 12 at the time she said he sexually assaulted her in 2015 and 2016.

Nova-Rivera was charged in 2020 when the abuse was first reported to authorities.

Both girls testified during trial to similar scenarios of being inappropriately touched by Nova-Rivera while visiting his home.