LAWRENCE, MASS. (WHDH) - A Lawrence man accused of giving teenage girls cocaine before bringing a 13-year-old girl to Lawrence General Hospital where she later died is now facing an aggravated rape of a child charge.
Carlos Rivera, 47, appeared in Lawrence District Court Tuesday for a dangerousness hearing but was instead arraigned on the rape charge after evidence obtained during the 13-year-old girl’s autopsy linked his DNA to the girl, according to the Essex District Attorney’s Office.
He remains held without bail with a probable cause hearing scheduled for July 2.
Authorities allege Rivera and a girl under the age of 16 brought Chloe Ricard, of Amesbury, to Lawrence General Hospital on May 20.
She was pronounced dead shortly after.
An investigation determined Rivera, the 13-year-old, and the other teen had been at Rivera’s apartment on Bellevue Street in Lawrence on May 19 and most of the next day. Prosecutors allege that at some point he provided the 13-year-old girl with drugs.
Rivera is also accused of indecently assaulting a 16-year-old girl on an earlier date.
He was arrested on May 25 at the Lawrence police station after being questioned and charged with two counts of distribution of a Class B drug (cocaine) to a minor, two counts of indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 and one count of indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or over.
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has not yet ruled on the cause and manner of the teen’s death.
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