Crime & Safety

Despite Daughters' Pleas, 'Gang Mom' Sent To Jail

Defense attorney says Maribel Rivas was trying to protect her 15-year-old daughter, but made poor choices.

As a single mother raising six daughters, Maribel Rivas didn't want her girls to get caught up in gangs. Hanging out with other kids who were gang-involved was enough to get a child grounded and, once, a one of the girls was banned from seeing a boyfriend who had gang ties.

That's what Rivas' court-appointed defense attorney Mark Garver told Judge Rebecca Connolly on Thursday morning, as his client sat next to him in jail-issue red clothes awaiting the judge's ruling on her sentence.

Rivas, 41, is the Watsonville mother who last month near the Pajaro Valley High School campus.

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and Thursday she was sentenced to 120 days in County Jail.

Rivas' family begged for her return home and Garver asked Rivas be sentences to the 37 days she's already served and probation. However, the requests may be moot because Rivas has an immigration hold and "she most likely going to be deported."

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The defense attorney argued the case wasn't about gangs, but about a mother making a poor decision. Police detectives were unable to find any current gang connection in Rivas' life, though she ran with a tough crowd when she was a teenager.

"She is disappointed in herself for setting a bad example for her children," Garver said.

A YouTube video shown in court Thursday—and the impetus of the police investigation—showed Rivas shouting gang slurs and telling her daughter to "(explicative) her up!" while the two Pajaro Valley High girls tussled in the dirt. Other kids stood by watching.

In the video, Rivas' daughter, wearing a red shirt, had the other girl pinned to the Harkins Slough foot path and was slapping her in the face. The second girl was dressed in blue.

Red and blue are the colors claimed by rival gangs—Norteños and Sureños—in Watsonville.

Rivas was arrested shortly after the video came to the attention of Pajaro Valley High school resource officer Chris Johnson. The video has since been removed from the Internet.

"Her conduct promoted gang violence," said Assistant District Attorney Alex Byers, who prosecuted the case.

Byers said Rivas' actions go against all of the anti-gang efforts made by the justice system and local schools, and are not good parenting.

Parents "should lead by example," he said. "Our position has always been Ms Rivas didn't lead by example."

Garver said Rivas went to the fight to aid her daughter, whom she had heard was being jumped by gang members after school. The teen had received threats and, two months before the YouTube-captured fight, one of Rivas' nephews was killed by gang members in Salinas.

"She wasn't thinking," Garver said. "She regrets what she did and, if she could, she would change everything about that day."

Rivas' three sisters and two of her daughters, including the teen who was in the fight, spoke on her behalf. They said she was sorry, remorseful and a good mother who was the rock of their family.

"Please reunite her back to us," sister Bernice Rivas said. "We really need her."

Rivas penned a statement, but was too emotional to present it. Garver read it instead.

"Fighting is never the answer to any problem," she wrote. "... It was very irresponsible of me as a mother and a role model."

In addition to jail time, Rivas was given five years probation, parenting classes and a fine.


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