Man gets 4 years for helping cover up murder of Marlen Ochoa, whose baby was cut from her womb
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A man has been sentenced to 4 years in prison after pleading guilty to helping cover up the grisly murder of 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa, whose baby was cut from her womb in 2019.
Piotr Bobak, 44, pleaded guilty to one count of obstruction of justice on Monday, according to Cook County court records. He originally was charged with two counts of obstruction and two counts of concealing a homicide. He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, and given credit for the 3 years and nearly 8 months he's already spent in custody, meaning he will be released in about four months.
Bobak was accused of helping his girlfriend, Clarisa Figueroa, and her daughter, Desiree Figueroa, cover up Ochoa's murder. The Figueroas both have pleaded not guilty to indictments charging them with murder, kidnapping, dismembering a body, and concealing a homicide in the deaths of Ochoa and her baby, Yovanny Lopez. Their cases are still pending.
Police and prosecutors have said, not long after Clarisa Figueroa's own adult son died of natural causes, she told her family she was pregnant. They say she plotted for months to acquire a newborn, and that she posted an ultrasound and photos of a room decorated for a baby on her Facebook page. In March 2019, she and Ochoa connected on a Facebook page for pregnant women
The two first met in person around April 1, 2019, when Ochoa went to the Figueroas' house and left unharmed, prosecutors allege. The teen returned three weeks later to accept Clarisa Figueroa's offer of free baby clothes, and as Desiree Figueroa was showing Ochoa a photo album of her late brother to distract her, Clarisa Figueroa sneaked up behind her and strangled her with a cord.
Once Ochoa stopped showing signs of life, Clarisa Figueroa cut the baby from her womb with a butcher knife and she and her daughter wrapped the teen's body in a blanket, put it in a plastic bag and dragged it outside to a garbage can, according to prosecutors.
Later that day, Clarisa Figueroa called 911 claiming that her newborn baby wasn't breathing. When first responders arrived, the child was blue. Clairsa, a former certified nursing assistant, passed the baby off as her own when she took him to Christ Medical Center, where he died two months later.
The baby's real identity was not revealed for three weeks after Ochoa's murder, after police investigating Ochoa's disappearance conducted a DNA test on the baby and confirmed he was Ochoa's. Detectives later found Ochoa's body stuffed in a trash can at the Figueroas' home.