Teen who terrorized Corona Park pleads guilty to murder

The teenager charged in connection with a series of robberies in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in 2006 that resulted in the death of one victim and the near fatal killing of another has pleaded guilty to murder and attempted murder in the case.
Yovanni Rivera, 19, formerly of 109-55 54th Avenue in Elmhurst, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder. Justice Arthur Cooperman set sentencing for October 6, and indicated that he would likely sentence the defendant to 25 years to life in prison on the murder charge and a concurrent term of 25 years in prison on the attempted murder charge.
According to the charges, Rivera, acting alone, approached Carlos Flores, 40, of Ridgewood, as he was walking through the park on the evening of December 4, 2006, and robbed him of $20 in cash, his identification and MetroCard before hitting him numerous times with a machete, causing him to sustain deep slashes to his face and legs and gashes to the back of his head, fatally wounding him. Flores’s body was found half-submerged in a park pond near the Long Island Expressway and College Point Boulevard the following morning.
In the second attack, Rivera and a co-defendant Marcos Polanco, 19, of 108-02 43rd Avenue in Corona, approached 33-year-old Ja Woo Park while he was jogging through the park at approximately 6:45 p.m. on December 25, 2006, and punched, kicked and stomped him, causing him to sustain severe head trauma, before robbing him of cash and the keys to his 2007 Honda van. Park, who was found unconscious near the Unisphere, remains in a coma to this day.
District Attorney Richard A. Brown said that Polanco appeared before Justice Cooperman on March 12, 2008, and pleaded guilty to first-degree robbery. He is expected to be sentenced to 20 years in prison when he is sentenced on September 26.