San Benito County hospital board member Ernest Rivas is serving
a 90-day sentence in home confinement and was forced to register as
a sex offender after recently accepting a plea deal reducing a
misdemeanor molestation charge to a count of battery, according to
records.
San Benito County hospital board member Ernest Rivas is serving a 90-day sentence in home confinement and was forced to register as a sex offender after recently accepting a plea deal reducing a misdemeanor molestation charge to a count of battery, according to records.
Rivas, 58, pleaded no contest April 12 in accepting the agreement. Aside from the home confinement and registration as a sex offender, he got a $540 fine, is on probation for three years and was ordered against any contact with the victim, according to court documents.
That victim, then 16, alleged Rivas kissed her with his tongue in July 2009 while the two were on a motorcycle ride
His plea agreement stipulated that the original charge of child molestation gets dropped, but Rivas had to register as a sex offender after Judge Steven Sanders found the battery was for “sexual gratification,” court documents show.
Rivas, who was elected to the hospital board in the fall of 2008, was suspected of taking the then-16-year-old girl on a motorcycle ride on July 16 before kissing her in Tres Pinos, according to the Hollister police report.
The incident was reported to police on July 19, and officers arrested Rivas at his home four days later on the first block of Monterey Street in Hollister.
Rivas previously was set to accept a plea bargain in February but it fell through after there was a disagreement on details of his sentencing.
Rivas then switched attorneys from Elvira Zaragoza Robinson to Art Cantu, delaying the case further.
The hospital board member is in his first term. In January, other board members hoped Rivas would step down from his elected position, but Rivas has yet to do so.
A misdemeanor conviction does not stop Rivas from continuing to hold his elected position on the hospital board.
