LANCASTER, Pa. — A Lancaster man convicted earlier this year for deliberately setting his family's home on fire and killing his wife in 2010 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison plus 20 years, the Lancaster County District Attorney's Office announced.
Carlos Montalvo-Rivera, 53, was convicted in April of first-degree murder in connection to the death of his wife, Olga Sanchez-Reyes, who died in the fire in her Dauphin Street home on December 6, 2010.
Montalvo-Rivera was also found guilty of arson, risking catastrophe, and three counts of attempted homicide after the three-week trial.
Lancaster County Judge Dennis Reinaker ordered the mandatory life imprisonment for first-degree homicide plus 20 to 40 years, prosecutors said.
Montalvo-Rivera also owes $116,975.28 in restitution.
Investigators charged Montalvo-Rivera with Sanchez-Reyes' murder in 2019 after a nine-year investigation.
“The lame story you concocted and continued to hold on to simply didn’t hold any water,” Reinaker said to Montalvo-Rivera before ordering sentence. “The jury didn’t believe you and I think that’s how it should be.”
Montalvo-Rivera claimed that intruders broke into his home, killed Sanchez-Reyes, and set fire to it out of retaliation for her brother, who had cooperated with the DEA in an unrelated case.
Some of the other inconsistencies and inaccuracies presented by the prosecution at trial included:
- Montalvo-Rivera stated he and his wife had a happy marriage, but a family member testified to hearing him say he’d “kill his wife like a dog” following an argument. Ponessa stated the defendant, who was having a family night with the victim and their three children, ran into someone he believed was having an affair with his wife on two occasions on the same night of the murder and fire.
- Montalvo-Rivera he was knocked unconscious by intruders for nearly an hour although no brain or head injuries were found in a CT scan or observed by responding medical personnel. Montalvo-Rivera also showed no signs of being in the home during the night of the fire due to his carbon monoxide levels.
- Montalvo-Rivera stated he jumped out of a second-floor window to escape the fire. Evidence showed the window he claimed to have jumped out of was closed and further testimony revealed Montalvo-Rivera was observed attempting to get up to the window to open it during the fire.
- Montalvo-Rivera told police he had his hands tied by the intruders, yet the prosecution showed he could have easily done it himself. Ponessa, wearing four-inch heels during her closing argument, tied both her wrists and ankles with a similar binding and in a similar way that the defendant claimed to have been tied the night of the homicide.
The defense argued that the prosecution hesitated and refrained, a key aspect of reasonable doubt, from acting from 2011 to 2019 until charges were filed and that a thorough investigation was not done.
The jury did not agree with defense arguments.
Reinaker also commended the work Assistant District Attorneys Christine Wilson and Jennifer Ponessa, and former Lancaster City Bureau of Police Detective Nathan Nickel did on the case.
The nearly nine-year investigation resulted in charges being filed by Nickel in 2019, according to prosecutors.
“This was an absolutely brutal and heinous crime that involved multiple victims,” Wilson said during the sentencing proceeding. “It was a cold-blooded murder. Even though the defendant refuses to admit accountability for his actions, he’s been found guilty by a jury of his peers.”
The jury agreed with the prosecution that Montalvo-Rivera first killed the victim, poured gasoline up the steps and into the victim’s bedroom, set the house on fire while his children were on the third floor, snuck out a door on the first floor, tied himself up, and attempted to create a story to cover his tracks and prove his innocence.
“Justice has been delayed, but the victim’s family has finally received it,” Wilson said.
