Willacy County man sentenced to decades in prison for fatal child abuse case

BROWNSVILLE — A Willacy County man was sentenced to prison Wednesday for the death of a Sebastian teenager.

The jury convicted Ruben Gonzalez Cordoba on Tuesday afternoon of a lesser charge of criminal negligent homicide instead of murder. They also convicted him of injury to a child. The jury found him not guilty of the remaining counts of injury to a child.

The sentencing comes after more than a week of trial.

He received 30 years for injury to a child and two years on the criminal negligent homicide conviction.

The sentences will run concurrent.

He was also fined $6,000.

Gonzalez was accused of abuse, including starvation, that killed 13-year-old Jesse Harrison Jr. on Jan. 23, 2021.

His attorney, Nat Perez, however told jurors that Harrison died from sepsis and a coronavirus infection.

Harrison’s mother, Sabrina Loredo and his grandmother, Antonia Villarreal Gonzalez, are also charged in the case.

Both women are charged with murder and several counts of injury to a child.

Loredo was 33 at the time of the crime while Villarreal was 56.

They have both pleaded not guilty and are scheduled for trial later this year.

Gonzalez will get credit for time served and an appeal is pending.

This is a developing story. 

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