The Riverside County District Attorney’s Office will seek a minimum 31-year sentence for Cabazon resident Jake Haro when he is sentenced Monday, Nov. 3, for murdering his 7-month-old son Emmanuel, while the Public Defender’s Office will argue for a term of 15 years to life, court documents filed Friday show.
Haro, 32, on Oct. 16 pleaded guilty at the Riverside Hall of Justice to second-degree murder, assault on a child under 8 causing death and filing a false police report.
“There is nothing in the law or before this court that should lead a sentencing judge to believe that this man deserves anything but the maximum sentence allowed by law,” Assistant District Attorney Brandon Smith wrote.
Emmanuel remained missing on Friday. District Attorney Mike Hestrin has previously said that Emmanuel died from prolonged abuse.
Second-degree murder carries a sentence of 15 years to life. The term for a child assault conviction is 25 years to life. The DA’s Office said that the murder and assault were part of the same act. Under California law, a defendant can be sentenced on only one charge if one act resulted in convictions on multiple charges.
Typically, a judge will sentence the defendant on the count that carries the longest prison sentence. But Superior Court Judge Gary Polk is not bound by that practice.
Smith proposed in his filing on Friday that Haro first be sentenced to six years for violating his probation.
Haro had pleaded guilty to the court in 2023 to child abuse causing great bodily injury after he and his wife abused their 10-week-old daughter, Carolina, in 2018 to the point where she cannot use her arms and legs and has cerebral palsy, Smith wrote. Haro was ordered to serve 180 days in custody, and a six-year prison term was suspended as long as Haro did not break more laws. But on the same day Haro admitted killing Emmanuel, he pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of ammunition.
After Haro finishes that six-year term, Smith wrote, he should begin serving a sentence of 25 years to life for assaulting Emmanuel. A one-year sentence for a misdemeanor count of filing a false police report — Haro and wife Rebecca claimed that Emmanuel had been kidnapped — should run at the same time, Smith wrote.
“Jake Haro murdered seven-month-old Emmanuel, but in reality, he comes before the court having taken the lives of two young children,” Smith wrote. “If there are lower forms of evil in this world, I am not aware of them.”
Deputy Public Defender Allison Lowe, in a document also filed Friday, said Haro should receive credit for admitting his guilt and doing so at an early stage of the case. Because of that, Lowe wrote, Polk should sentence him on the lighter of the two felonies, the murder charge that carries a penalty of 15 years to life.
Lowe added that Haro does not have the ability to pay fines or fees.
“Prior to his arrest, Mr. Haro was not working and was on disability,” Lowe wrote.
Rebecca Haro, 41, is also due in court on Monday. Court records show that her attorney, Jeff Moore, plans to object to the judge’s order that made private a document related to a so-called Perkins operation in which a suspect is placed in a jail cell with an inmate who, being paid by law enforcement, attempts to elicit a confession.
No one has revealed which of the Haros was involved in that ruse.
Rebecca Haro has pleaded not guilty to the same charges to which her husband admitted.
The case has garnered national attention, with local residents building a makeshift memorial to the baby outside his home and going on impromptu, hopeful ground searches. Others, fluent in social media, have devoted hours of coverage to the case, in some instances breaking news ahead of the mainstream media but in others creating a burden for detectives who authorities said have had to devote time to investigating ultimately false claims.