Thursday afternoon, Daniel Luis Rivera pleaded guilty to his role in disposing of a man’s body back in 2019 that was found in the woods, burned and covered in bubble wrap in Worcester.
According to court documents, Rivera, 30, from Worcester, pleaded guilty to one count of accessory after the fact and was sentenced to two years to two years and a day.
Rivera is currently serving a sentence for heroin trafficking after pleading guilty to that charge in May 2021, according to court records. Rivera’s new sentence will be served after his current term.
Back in 2019, Rafael Guzman, 35, was arrested in connection with the death of 30-year-old Benjamin Pacheco who was found burned and wrapped in bubblewrap off Granite Street in Worcester on Sept. 10, 2019.
Around that same time in September, officials found surveillance video that showed two men helping Guzman, with moving a “body-length bundle” that investigators say contained Pacheco’s dead body, according to court documents.
Those two suspects were Primitivo Matos, 35, and Rivera who admitted to police that they helped Guzman, but both said they did not know they were moving a dead body, according to court documents.
Guzman was arrested two days after Pacheco’s body was found, according to documents filed in court. Investigators obtained surveillance video that showed Guzman driving a car, near the area.
Police collected more surveillance video at Guzman’s residence located at 36 Great Brook Valley Ave., which showed Guzman carrying a large roll of plastic bubble wrap into the building early on Sept. 10 according to court documents, as well as backing his car up to the building and putting something in the trunk.
The trunk was then closed and Guzman drove off. Video footage showed the car in the area of Granite Street where Pacheco’s body was found around 6 a.m. on Sept. 10, according to documents.
Police used a license plate reader at Great Brook Valley to determine the two people who helped Guzman with the removal of Pacheco’s body were inside a car registered to Daniel Luis Rivera, according to court documents.
Both cases for Guzman and Matos are still pending and ongoing in Worcester Superior Court, according to the Worcester County District Attorney’s office.
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