Former Kane County lay pastor gets 15 years in prison for sexually assaulting goddaughter
ST. CHARLES, Ill. (CBS) -- A Kane County lay pastor has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after being convicted of sexually assaulting his then-9-year-old goddaughter.
Mark Rivera, 50, was sentenced by Kane County Judge John A. Barsanti, the county State's Attorney's office announced Tuesday. He was convicted in December of predatory criminal sexual assault of a child – for which he was sentenced to 12 years, and aggravated criminal sexual abuse – for which he was sentenced to three more.
He will receive credit for the credit for the more than three years he has already served in the Kane County jail and on electronic home monitoring, the State's Attorney's office said.
Rivera will also have to register for life as a sex offender.
Rivera was a lay pastor in the Anglican Church of North America in Big Rock, Illinois, about 50 miles west of Chicago.
In May 2022, CBS 2's Charlie De Mar spoke exclusively to a woman who goes by the name of Cherin Marie – whose daughter Rivera was convicted of sexually assaulting.
"Mark was a groomsman at my wedding, godfather to my children, one of our closest friends," she said.
Cherin said she helped Rivera – a community leader, close friend, and lay leader at the church – start the now-dissolved Christ Our Light Anglican Church, which rented space at a church building in Big Rock.
But in June 2019, Rivera was charged with sexually assaulting Cherin's then-9-year-old daughter over a span of months.
Cherin said she brought the allegations to church leaders in May 2019, but was dismissed and encouraged not to report Rivera.
In a complaint filed last year in Kane County Court, Cherin's attorney said church leaders were notified of a separate sexual assault case in 2018 — prior to the alleged assault of the 9-year-old — but nothing was done by the church. Rivera was also later charged in that case.