DANIA ROSILES - 2 yo (7/2011) Accused: Juan Rivera-Aguilar - Salt Lake City UT

2-year-old beating victim dies; Salt Lake City man arrested

By Roxana ORellana

The Salt Lake Tribune

Published: July 7, 2011 06:50AM
Updated: July 6, 2011 11:34PM


Juan Rivera-Aguilar


A 2-year-old girl who was taken to the hospital Tuesday in extremely critical condition was pronounced dead on Wednesday, Salt Lake City police reported.

The man suspected of beating the girl has been arrested and jailed.

Police were told the girl was not breathing as they reached an apartment in the area of 1800 South and McClelland Street (1045 East) about 12:25 p.m. on Tuesday.

A doctor at the hospital told police the girl appeared to have been struck multiple times on the stomach and head, according to Salt Lake County jail booking documents. Another doctor said the girl “appears brain dead and is not expected to survive,” the
jail documents state.

Police arrested 32-year-old Juan Pablo Rivera-Aguilar on suspicion of child abuse and violence in the presence of a child. It is now likely that investigators will request that Salt Lake County prosecutors file homicide charges against the man.

The girl’s 4-year-old brother, who was also at the home, said Rivera-Aguilar had hit the girl five times in the stomach and five times in the head area, booking documents state. Police said the boy also was assaulted, including having his hair pulled.

Rivera-Aguilar allegedly admitted to punching the girl in the stomach during an interview with police. During a search of the apartment, police found clumps of hair.

According to booking documents, Rivera-Aguilar was baby-sitting the toddler.

Police said he is the boyfriend of the mother of the two children.

Court records show Rivera-Aguilar has a 2004 conviction for class B misdemeanor attempted violation of condition of release after an arrest for domestic violence, and a 2006 conviction for reckless driving, an infraction.

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SALT LAKE CITY (ABC 4 News) - Police say a man has been arrested on suspicion of beating a 2-year-old girl, who was transported to a local hospital in extremely critical condition and later died.

SLC Police Detective Wichmann Cary told ABC 4 News
that at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, officials responded to a 911 call from
an apartment at 1836 S. McClelland St. of a little girl who was not
breathing.

After arrival, fire officials called Salt Lake City
Police investigators after assessing that the girl had been beaten
around her torso and head.

The girl was transported Primary Children's Medical Center in extremely critical condition.

Police say 32-year-old Juan Pablo Aguilar-Rivera was arrested and booked into jail for 10 counts of child abuse and 2 counts of violence in the presence of a child.

Police said the girl's death will alter the
charges against Aguilar-Rivera, who will now most likely face a child
homicide charge.

Police say Aguilar-Rivera is the boyfriend of
the girl's mother, and that the alleged abuse happened in the presence
of her sibling. Police did not immediately give an age or gender of the
sibling, but did say that the sibling also showed signs of abuse.
Police said the girl's body will be sent to the Utah State Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy.

ACCORDING TO CHANNEL 5 NEWS, THIS MAN HAD PREVIOUS CHARGES AND HAD BEEN LET OUT.

The 2-year-old had blunt force trauma on her
head and stomach and appeared to have been struck multiple times. The
attending physician reports the victim appears to be brain dead and is
not expected to survive," according to Salt Lake County Jail documents.

Juan Pablo Rivera-Aguilar, 32, was booked into the Salt Lake
County Jail for investigation of 10 counts of child abuse and two counts
of violence in the presence of a child.

Aguilar is the boyfriend of the victim's mother and was watching
the child and her 4-year-old brother when the alleged abuse occurred,
according to police. The brother also showed signs of abuse but not
serious enough that required him being taken to the hospital,
investigators said. He told detectives that Aguilar "pulled out" his
hair.

Several clumps of hair were found in Aguilar's apartment by investigators executing a search warrant, booking records state.

The brother told police he watched Aguilar punch his sister in
the head five times and in the stomach five times, according to jail
records.

Aguilar's brother, Sam Rivera says he doesn't believe his brother is
guilty. "They like him (the kids), if he was an abuser, the kids would
be afraid to be with him for him to watch them," Rivera said.

Police said the girl, who's name was not released, died Wednesday. Additional charges will likely be screened when the case is taken to the Salt Lake District Attorney's Office.

Aguilar pleaded guilty in 1996 to a charge of providing
prohibited items to a minor, a class B misdemeanor, according to court
records. He was also convicted of an amended charge of attempting to violate the conditions of his release after being arrested for domestic violence, also a class B misdemeanor, according to Utah State Court
records.

Salt Lake man pleads guilty to fatally beating toddler

By Aaron Falk

Published: December 29, 2011 09:27AM
Updated: December 29, 2011 11:28PM


A Salt Lake City man has pleaded guilty to abusing and killing his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter last summer.

Juan Rivera-Aguilar, 33, entered his plea Wednesday in 3rd District
Court to first-degree felony child-abuse homicide. The charge was
brought in connection with the July death of Dania Rosiles.

According
to court documents, Rivera-Aguilar was babysitting the girl when he
punched her in the stomach five times, causing fatal internal bleeding.

Police
said Rivera-Aguilar also hit the girl’s 4-year-old brother and pulled
his hair. During a search of the home, near 1800 South and McClelland
Street, police found clumps of hair.

In exchange for his plea, two second-degree felony counts of inflicting injury on a child were dismissed.

Rivera-Aguilar faces a possible sentence of five years to life in prison when he is sentenced Feb. 13.

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District attorney: Child abuse on the rise in Salt Lake County


WEST VALLEY CITY — On a weekday night in February, Kim Hale and her 14-year-old daughter wash dishes together in
their home.

It's a typical mother-daughter moment. But for Hale, it's just another reminder of what should have been. "Her name's on my arm," Hale said, showing her left forearm.

The blue ink says "Shelby," the name of her oldest daughter, who was also known as "Tink." Hale has a Tinkerbell tattoo too.


Shelby was only 10 years old when she died, after being abused and locked in a closet by her father and stepmother.

Shelby would have been 16-years-old this year. "She would have started dating, learning how to drive a car, her first prom," Hale said.

Shelby was only 10 years old when she died, on Aug. 1, 2006. She had been locked in a linen closet where she struggled to breathe and choked on her own vomit. Her abusers were own her father and stepmother: Ryan and Angela Andrews, who are now in prison.

"While they were watching a movie, and she called out to her father and said, ‘I can't breathe!' And he got up to get off the couch to go check on her and Angela said, ‘Don't do that. She's just playing you.' And he sat back down," Hale said. "And when they went after the movie was over, she fell out of the closet, dead."

Only then, did Hale discover the kind of life Shelby had been subjected to. The last year of her life my have been the worst.

Related:


Ask a Cop: How cops emotionally handle child abuse cases
Every cop has gone on a call that has affected him emotionally. Not one cop has ever said
they weren't affected by child abuse. Officer Anonymous explains how he has dealt with the
calls he and his co-workers respond to on a daily basis.

"When I saw her body after she died, 80 percent of her body was covered in bruises and bite marks from the top of her head to the soles of her feet. It was disgusting," Hale said. "It took my breath away. I collapsed against the wall. I couldn't even believe."

Shelby's case made headlines. It was one of the worst police in Syracuse and prosecutors in Davis County had seen.

Not all abuse stories are uncovered, and they're happening behind closed doors in alarming numbers — especially in Salt Lake County, where prosecutors noticed a disturbing trend surfacing last year. Cases of physical abuse surpassed sex crimes against children, which isn't typical.

"The fact that they could noticeably discern there was a difference, that was troubling because obviously that tells you a trend is there," said Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.


Dania Rosiles was just 2 years old when she was beaten to death by
her mother's boyfriend, Juan Rivera-Aguilar, who admitted he "lost it."


There's no definite answer that explains why it's happening. Some blame the downturn in the economy.

More people may also be reporting abuse, and physicians are better trained at recognizing the signs.

Doctors knew 2-year-old Dania Rosiles had been abused when she was brought to a hospital last summer. She eventually died.

Charging documents say the toddler had bruises all over her stomach, chest and back, as if someone had repeatedly punched her. Some of her hair had also been violently pulled out of her head.

Police arrested Dania's mother's boyfriend, Juan Rivera-Aguilar, who admitted he "lost it."

That case also made the news, but many others didn't get that kind of attention: a father who punched his son with a closed fist for three minutes until he blacked out; a woman who beat her daughter with a belt because she was upset over her school attendance; and another mother who beat her 8-year-old and 11-year-old sons — the 8-year-old said she only stopped when blood started to come from his ear and nose.

"I have everything from people who are just physically, just beating their children for discipline reasons with belts and cords and what not, to people who are using lighters to burn their children," Gill said.


By the end of 2011, Salt Lake County had filed 69 child abuse cases, 45 of which were felonies. Thirteen of those cases are still under investigation.

Gill says those numbers ought to be a wake-up call. "We will never be able to prosecute our way out of this problem," he said.

It's a problem that's preventable.

Gill says child abuse is such a concern, he's made if the focus of a summit, planned fall 2012. The summit will address the problem and how to find collaborative ways to solve the problem.

Meanwhile, Hale says her three kids never told her about the abuse. But instinct told her something wasn't right. She says just one phone call could have made a difference.

"If you think something is going on, call somebody, call the police," Hale said. "I just wish, looking back, that we had done that."


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Utah man gets prison for fatal beating of 2-year-old
Despite guilty plea, defendant insists he is innocent.

By aaron falk | The Salt Lake Tribune
First Published 1 hour ago • Updated 23 minutes ago

A Salt Lake City man could spend up to life in prison for fatally beating his girlfriend’s 2-year-old daughter last summer.

Juan Aguilar-Rivera told police he was babysitting Dania Rosiles in July 2011 when he punched the child in the stomach for interrupting him while he was playing a game on his cell phone, prosecutors say.

Aguilar-Rivera, 33, said nothing Monday as 3rd District Judge Robin Reese sentenced him to a prison term of 5 years to life on the first-degree felony child abuse homicide charge. The man’s attorney, however, said his client has maintained his innocence despite taking a plea deal that reduced the minimum mandatory prison time from 15 years to five.

Aguilar-Rivera’s family said the man was told he had no chance of beating the charges and was essentially forced into accepting that plea deal. After hiring a new attorney, Aguilar-Rivera tried unsuccessfully to withdraw his guilty plea.

"To me, he’s always stuck by his statement that he doesn’t know what happened to the little girl, that he wasn’t violent with her," defense attorney Sean Young said in court.

The defense attorney said there had been talk that the child was being abused by her biological father, though prosecutors said the man was in jail at the time of the girl’s death for a domestic violence case involving the child’s mother.

Young also said Aguilar-Rivera told him the girl might have been injured falling in a bathtub.

But Salt Lake County prosecutor Rob Parrish said Dania Rosiles died as the result of a "very brutal, very extended assault."

The girl had severe injuries to her brain and abdomen and knuckle-sized bruises on her stomach from "multiple blows," officials said. She was also missing chunks of hair, the judge said.

"For you to stand here and tell me it’s some big accident and you’re a loving caregiver," Reese told Aguilar-Rivera, "it’s hard to fathom."

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