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Nothing About This Is Normal
Desiree Figueroa (left) and her mother, Clarisa Figueroa (right), murdered Marlen Ochoa-Lopez and cut the vicitm’s baby, Yovanny Jadiel Lopez, out of the her body. (Mug shots: Chicago Police Department via AP)
When Desiree Figueroa spoke at her sentencing Thursday in a Chicago, Illinois, courtroom for helping murder pregnant woman Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, she acknowledged “I can never apologize enough for what I did,” according to Chicago outlet WGN.
Judge Peggy Chiampas threw that phrasing back at her and offered no solace to the defendant as she sentenced her to 30 years in prison.
“Your mom put you in the position you were in, and so did you,” Chiampas said. “You’re right. You can never apologize. I want you to live with that for the rest of your life.”
The defendant’s mother Clarisa Figueroa lured the victim, Marlen Ochoa-Lopez, 19, to her Chicago home in April 2019 by offering free baby clothes. At one point, Ochoa-Lopez, then nine months pregnant, was looking at a photo album featuring the elder Figueroa’s recently deceased son. Figueroa used this moment to begin strangling her with a coaxial cable.
According to prosecutors, Ochoa-Lopez managed to get a hand under the cable, and Clarisa Figueroa called out to daughter and co-defendant Desiree Figueroa: “You’re not doing your f—— job.”
One by one, the various defendants folded under prosecution. Police caught the elder Figueroa’s boyfriend, Piotr Bobak, hosing off a rug with bleach. He later pleaded guilty to a charge of concealing a homicide and was sentenced to four years in prison. Desiree Figueroa took a plea deal for 30 years in prison in exchange for testifying against Clarisa Figueroa if that case reached trial. It never did. The murderous mother took a plea deal for 50 years behind bars.
“Your punishment will never be enough because my son will never be able to hug his mother ever!” the child’s father, who is also named Yovanny Lopez, wrote in a statement read ahead of Clarisa Figueroa’s sentencing, according to Chicago ABC affiliate WLS in April.
Lopez also tore into the defendant daughter on Thursday.
“I cannot bear to be in the courtroom, where I will have to share the same air with the monster that strangled my wife, while her mother mother ripped my baby son out out of her body,” he said in a statement, according to WGN. “I cannot bear to look at this monster, knowing that one day she will be released back into our community, where she can harm someone again. I cannot bear to look at this monster who choked and choked and choked my wife until her life was gone. I cannot bear this agony.”
The younger Figueroa received 1,843 days of time-served credit.
The years of her sentence are “not enough time for this demonic woman, who is a real threat to our society,” said Julie Contreras, a pastor for Untied Giving Hope and a spokesperson for Ochoa-Lopez’s family, according to WGN.
More Law&Crime coverage: Texas woman sentenced to death for killing pregnant friend, stealing unborn child
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