Cedar Rapids man pleads lesser charge after third sexual assault in Iowa City

Fourth charge of sexual assault and drug offense dropped as part of a plea agreement

IOWA CITY – A Cedar Rapids man previously sentenced to 44 years in prison for two sexual assaults pleaded guilty last week to a lesser charge in another sexual assault.

A fourth charge and a drug charge were dropped as part of a plea agreement.

Carlos Allen Hivento, 37, who was originally charged with third-degree sexual abuse, pleaded to the lesser charge of assault, a misdemeanor.

According to the criminal complaint, Hivento took a woman to the roof of a bar in 2018. When she told him she wanted to return to the bar to be with her friends, Hivento tackled her to the ground, causing her to hit her head. He then sexually assaulted her in 2018.

Johnson County District Attorney Rachel Zimmerman Smith said the victim agreed to the resolution in this case.

One of the charges dismissed as part of the settlement was another count of third-degree sexual abuse brought against another woman in 2018. She was in an apartment with friends and Hivento, a complaint states. The woman was asleep — “unconscious” — and a witness saw Hivento touching the woman inappropriately.

The second charge that was dropped was possession of a controlled substance – cocaine, a serious misdemeanor. On January 8, 2019, Hivento was arrested on a warrant and had cocaine in one of his bags, which officers discovered when they took him to the Johnson County Jail.

In his July 5 written guilty plea to assault, Hivento pleaded guilty to possession of contraband on the grounds of a correctional facility, a felony. He faces five years in prison and will be sentenced for that crime on July 22.

Hivento was sentenced to 10 years in prison in April for third-degree sexual abuse after a jury found him guilty in February of a 2017 attack at another rooftop bar in downtown Iowa City.

A judge imposed that sentence in addition to his previous 34-year sentence in 2021, in which he was convicted of five counts of third-degree sexual abuse and two counts of invasion of privacy, bringing the total sentence to 44 years.

The investigation into this assault led to the three other women who accused Hivento of sexual assault in 2017 and 2018.

He is incarcerated at Anamosa State Prison.

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