The boyfriend of a woman who is accused, along with her daughter, of strangling 19-year-old Marlen Ochoa-Lopez and cutting her baby out of her womb pleaded guilty Monday to his role in the 2019 case that shocked the nation and was sentenced to four years in prison.
Piotr Bobak, 44, pleaded guilty to a felony count of obstruction of justice. He was charged with felony counts of concealment of a homicide, concealment of a death and obstruction of justice.
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Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas sentenced Bobak to four years in prison, as per the terms of the plea agreement. Because of day-for-day credit and time already served awaiting trial, Bobak likely has less than four months left to serve, Chiampas noted.
“Not a day goes by that I do not regret my involvement in this horrible crime,” Bobak told the judge.
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Bobak was the boyfriend of Clarisa Figueroa, who, along with her daughter, Desiree, is charged with murder and other felonies in the slaying of Ochoa-Lopez. Her son Yovani Yadiel Lopez died at a hospital after the attack.
Ochoa-Lopez was nine months pregnant when she disappeared, last seen in April 2019 leaving her high school.
The Figueroas lured the young mother to their home Chicago’s Southwest Side with promises of free baby clothes, prosecutors alleged. Clarisa Figueroa strangled the teen with a cable, prosecutors alleged, and sliced open her abdomen from side to side, removed the baby from the womb and placed him inside a bucket.
The elder Figueroa then called 911 and announced that on her own she had delivered a baby who was not breathing, prosecutors said. As paramedics arrived, she was holding the baby with its placenta and umbilical cord attached. Both were rushed to Advocate Christ Medical Center.
When detectives arrived to search the Figueroa home, Bobak was outside cleaning a rug with bleach and a hose, prosecutors said during a bond hearing in 2019. When Bobak saw the officers, he dropped the bleach and hose, and walked away, they said.
Ochoa-Lopez’s decaying body was found in a garbage can outside the Figueroa home Tuesday with the coaxial cables used to strangle her still around her neck, prosecutors said.
