Victor Cardona-Rivera is appealing his sentence after being convicted on rape and other charges by a Lyon County jury earlier this year.
On Wednesday, Lyon County Judge Lee Fowler sentenced Cardona-Rivera to nearly 26 years in prison — 155 months or just shy of 13 years in prison per count after convictions on two counts of rape. The rape counts were considered the controlling sentence for other convictions on single counts of aggravated criminal sodomy, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, aggravated witness intimidation and aggravated burglary. As part of the sentence, Cardona-Rivera has lifetime post-release supervision.
Defense attorney Rick Meier filed an appeal immediately, citing trial errors.
Cardona-Rivera was accused of getting inside an acquaintance’s home, threatening the woman and her toddler child with a knife and then raping the woman. Initially, a jury acquitted Cardona-Rivera of one aggravated battery charge and could not reach verdicts on eight other counts. A second jury convicted Cardona-Rivera on the eight remaining counts.
