Anthony Rivera didn’t have a plan for what he was going to say to his son’s killer.
When he spoke on the witness stand, he told Christian Maldonado of his hurt, grief and betrayal. In the end, he felt sorry for him, Rivera said. Nobody won.
Toward the end as he spoke, Judge Gina Jones asked him to share happier memories of his son, Luis Rivera, 27, to get a fuller picture of his life, before she sentenced Maldonado.
In that moment, he wasn’t ready to do it, Anthony said. He needed to address what Maldonado did — for his son.
“I just needed to see his face,” he told Jones, of Maldonado. “It’s good now.”
Maldonado, 23, of East Chicago, got 50 years for Rivera’s death. He indicated he would appeal.
He pleaded guilty in September to voluntary manslaughter, a Level 2 felony, plus a gun enhancement. He faced 25-50 years.
East Chicago Police responded at 3:38 p.m. March 24, 2024, to W. 145th Street and Northcote Avenue. Luis Rivera had just loaded his son into the car when Maldonado killed him after a brief argument, records show. Afterward, he ran north two or three blocks to his home.
Family said Rivera left behind two kids under 10. The other child was non-verbal. The two men were former friends.
His mother Christina Ramirez called it a “two-second killing.” Her son took Maldonado in when he had “no family” and nowhere to go, she said. Both parents asked for a maximum sentence.
“When he killed my son, I died too,” she said in emotional remarks.
Deputy Prosecutor Maureen Koonce said surveillance footage appeared to show the men trading words, but they ultimately didn’t know what was said. She asked for 50 years.
“This is the price to be paid for that,” she said, of the killing.
Maldonado was rejected from Lake County Community Corrections, partly because he was caught fighting in jail. As a convicted felon, he should never “have had a gun that day.”
They don’t know that Rivera’s toddler son saw what happened, but “we don’t know that he didn’t,” she said.
Defense lawyer Joe Roberts said the video showed there was a little more to the story. His client wouldn’t say what happened. Maldonado’s girlfriend was sick and he was walking back from his relative’s house with some food for her when he spotted Rivera.
Maldonado “made a poor decision that day,” he said. “It wasn’t anything that was premeditated.”
Witnesses told East Chicago Police that Rivera spotted Maldonado, then walked up to him, the lawyer said. The woman in Rivera’s car told the driver to leave, suspecting “something bad was going to happen.”
The shooting was under “sudden heat,” he said. Maldonado was backing up, fired a shot and ran. Roberts asked for a minimum sentence.
The lawyer said his client disputed that Rivera took him in.
They “partied together” in the past, he said. Maldonado said he stayed at Rivera’s place when they were “using drugs together” and he “passed out,” the lawyer said.
In court, Maldonado said what he did was “wrong” and hoped the family “finds closure.”
Lawyers noted Maldonado was in and out of juvenile court from around age 12 or 13 to 16. Records show he pleaded guilty to a lower gun felony in a 2020 armed robbery case.
“I wish you had taken some of the chances,” Jones told him, of juvenile court.
It was a place where they tried to “get through to you” so he wouldn’t “end up here in big boy court,” she said. “Sometimes our system fails when we don’t intervene enough, and we end up here.”
Jones handed down his sentence. She told Ramirez’s family to quiet down when they cheered.
Police recovered the gun. If released, Maldonado would be on parole for the rest of his life.
Afterward, Anthony Ramirez said he didn’t know what the men argued about.
That was “only between those two and God,” he said.
Relatives said fatherhood changed Luis for the better. He worked with his brothers fixing cars. When he died, he was looking to buy a house.
“Today, we did get justice,” his grandmother Yolanda Ramirez said. “He didn’t deserve this.”
Outside the Crown Point courthouse, the family released mylar balloons in his memory.
mcolias@post-trib.com
