Delaware County Daily Times - Dec 2, 1999 Article

Dad gets new lawyer in Katelyn kidnapping

Delaware County Daily Times (Primos - Upper Darby, PA) - Thursday, December 2, 1999

Author: CATHERINE DONALDSON-EVANS ; Of the Times Staff

MEDIA COURTHOUSE - Media attorney G. Guy Smith will defend Robert Rivera in the highly publicized kidnapping of his 20-month-old daughter Katelyn Rivera -Helton, who has been missing since Aug. 10.

Judge Robert C. Wright appointed Smith Nov. 29 after Rivera appeared before him last month to request a new lawyer. Rivera cited the reason as irreconcilable personality conflicts and disagreements about how the case should be handled with Assistant Public Defender Robert D'Agostino. "I'm representing him and I'm going to do the best job I can," said Smith, a former Swarthmore mayor who will be paid a maximum of $125 a day. "I'll take a look at it all and see what happens. That's as much as I know."

He declined to comment further on the case or on his new client. The trial is set for Jan. 10 before Wright.

Rivera was the last person seen with the toddler Aug. 10, when he burst into her Upper Chichester baby sitter's house, grabbed the little girl and fled.

He first told authorities he gave his daughter to a couple he didn't know at Longwood Gardens. Since then, he told the Daily Times in a jailhouse interview and in two letters that he "and God" are the only ones who know where she is. He has insisted she is safe.

Police so far have turned up a single shoe and sock belonging to the missing child, but have found no other clues leading to her whereabouts even after scouring regions in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.

After taking his daughter to the Philadelphia Zoo and McDonald's, according to his own accounts, and calling the child's mother, Jennifer Helton, from several different pay phones, Rivera spent the night of Aug. 10 with friends in Cecil County, Md. - without Katelyn .

He has been in jail since Aug. 11 facing charges of kidnapping and violating a protection from abuse order against Jennifer Helton.

Authorities, meanwhile, are continuing the investigation. A $12,000 reward has been offered for Katelyn 's return.

Anyone with information on the case should call Upper Chichester Police at (610) 485-8400, county detectives at (610) 891-4700, the FBI at (215) 418-4000 or Cecil County police at (410) 996-5547.