28/09/2020
My name is Elis Nelson Ortiz- Nieves, and I am 28 years of age. I am currently incarcerated in the Michigan Department of Correction On first degree murder, and first degree child abuse. Serving a sentence of life plus 80 to 150 years as I maintain my innocence. I’ve seen on TV and read about the people you have helped due to this broken justice system. It takes someone special with great character and courage to help those in need. Therefore I just wanted to tell you a lot about my situation to see if you can help on behalf of myself, my children, and family. On November 23,2016 I was released from federal prison for felon in possession of a firearm, while enjoying my freedom I met a woman named Sonja Hernandez through facebook. Later on I started to realize I knew her family since I was a child. A little after two months we started dating, I have met her children through several occasions while she would see me at work while I was working at my mechanic shop. She had two daughters and two boys, Ariana 11, David 10, Brianna 7, Giovanni 4. As time went on I formed a great relationship with kids except David aka Bubba. After some months I ended up moving in with her and at first things were good, the three oldest kids were in school and the youngest one would go to the babysitters which was her cousin named Melissa that lived down the street. I took on a father role pretty quick because I saw that their father wasn’t present, I would buy them food and take care of money for school field trips and also spend time with them. The kids loved me except David but that didn’t stop me from trying to have a relationship with him, I saw that Sonja the mother would leave the children alone a lot and leave them to fend for themselves. I can honestly say I taught her how to parent better and would always give her advice on how to talk to the kids and not go straight to spanking them because I didn’t condone that behavior. I didn’t even hit my own kids. During all this time spent with her and the kids David was expelled from school after breaking $1,000 worth of merchandise and trying to hit the principal, so he would have to go to the babysitters now for him to be watched while we worked. That ended up with him throwing a rock through her window and hitting someone in the head, so she told Sonja she wasn’t watching him anymore. So I decided since my schedule was flexible that I would watch the boys for Sonja until she got out of work at 3:00 PM. As I started to do that I would always be in my room located in the back of the trailer, and the boys would always be watching TV in the living room. But while I was in the back the youngest Giovanni who was four would always come to the back and say his brother ( David) was hitting him, at first I didn’t pay no mind or took it as serious because I always fought with my siblings- I told them to stop and leave it at that. But one day Giovanni came in the back and told me that his older brother was sexually touching him on his privates but I didn’t believe it !!, until one day I saw it for myself while bidding to see if it was true. So when i caught him I took my phone out and recorded Giovanni while i’m asking him what is brother is doing to him he said “ My brother is touching my privates and punching me in my stomach”, so I send the video to their mother and tell her she needed to do something about this when she gets home but she never did and Giovanni would always come up to us telling us what his brother did. So while I was home I tried to seperate them but I never knew what was going on when I was not home. One day David comes up to me and tells me there’s someone dead in the kitchen so I go look to make sure i’m hearing him right but there’s nothing there, so I take him to his mom to make sure that she hears what he is saying because there's something wrong with her son and she wasn’t taking it seriously. He goes to his room then he says he hears a little girl outside his window so I tell Sonja that she needs to get him help but it never happens. I knew there was something going on because my kids don’t act like this and don’t do things of this nature. As no help is provided things keep happening. As all the kids are on summer break the mother of my kids asks me if I can watch my daughters for a week so she can go to Las Vegas- I agree and her mom drops off my daughters Audianna was seven at the time and Neveah 3, along with my goddaughter Mariah 9. So when they got all settled in the house I took them to get some food and some ice cream. We return to the house for the night and put some music for the kids to dance to, after dancing for a while it’s getting late so I put a movie on for the kids to watch as we are all laying there I see that the kids were getting tired so I tell the boys to sleep in the back, Giovanni in his room, and David in Brianna's room due to the inciende that have happened between them. Sonja goes to our room in the back and I sleep on the couch with the girls to make sure that they're safe from David. That’s how everyone goes to sleep. Sonja had work the next morning around six am so as morning came I felt Sonja wake me up give me a kiss and tell me she was off to work then I fell back asleep. I woke up to a big bang and there I saw my daughters playing in the living room and I saw the fan that fell that made the big bang sound, I get up ask the girls if they want any cereal and pour only my oldest some and I looked around and notice that baby Giovanni was not up and playing in front with the rest of kids and that wasn’t normal. So I ask Arianna where her little brother is and she says he’s in the back. So I go to check on him and when I get to the room I see him curled up in like a little ball with no shirt. I get close and ask him if he’s okay and he tells me he does not feel good. So I tell him ok come take a bath then thinking that a cool bath may help him, but he’s slow to get up so I grab one of his arms to help guide him to the bath as we get there I can see that he is pale- so I think to myself maybe he’s hungry or dehydrated. I turn the water on and put him in the bath and I go to the front to get him some bacon and water, when I return he looks even worse and as I go to give him food he stiffens up and is about to fall. So I hurry and grab him and put him in my lap as I have one foot on the toilet that I sit him on. At this point in time I was in panic mode because I did not know what was happening or what to do, I tried to give him some water and bacon and it looked like he’s struggling to breath. I continued giving him water and he would choke on it. I see that his stomach is extended so I think to myself maybe I gave him too much water, I started pushing on his stomach in a hard motion trying to get him to throw up now as well as putting my fingers in his mouth hoping that it helps. I see nothing is working so I go to his room and lay him on the floor and put some shorts on him because he was in the shower. I can see that I'm losing him so I start to do CPR on him. I see that it’s not helping so I call my oldest daughter to go call for help. I told the kids to go outside because I didn’t want them to see what was happening. As I pick Giovanni up and take him to the front and lay him on the kitchen floor I continue to give him CPR because I didn’t know what else to do. Sonja was just showing up from her lunch break as she came in the house panicking to what she saw she started to help me give him cpr while the police and ambulance came. When the police got there he saw what I was doing and told me to stop because I was giving CPR too aggressively so he told me to give him air and he’ll do the CPR until his help came. When help arrived he told me to go wait outside with the rest of the kids so I did as I sat there in disbelief of what was going on and saying it was all my fault and it was because I was sleeping while all the kids were up. And I felt like nothing was done to stop what was going on in the household. After the baby was taken to the hospital they asked to take me and Sonja in to be questioned. I agreed to talk to them without a lawyer so as I told them what happened they would leave and come back and ask me again if that’s what happened and I would tell them over and over again. This lasted five hours of me telling them the same things, they asked me about the bruising on his stomach and I told them they probably came from me poking at his stomach and from the pressure of me giving him cpr. But they didn’t want to believe it so I was arrested on open murder while sitting in the county jail waiting on my trial I hired a laywer and was awaiting my time in court to prove my innocence, but there were things happening that hurt my heart so much. I got the police report and I couldn’t believe the statements David made. Arianna told nothing but the truth and how I really was with them. If you ever read it even the babysitter Melissa said while she watched the kids and the police interviewed them. David came back laughing and told Brianna to tell them I hit all of them which was never true and painful to hear when I treat them like my own. One thing that stuck out though was that everyone said that David was always violent towards his little brother and sisters. Sonja’s mom had said it and so did Melissa, Arianna, Aunt Silva. I also found about 10 CPS cases against Sonja and the father of the kids of abuse towards the kids, so to me things were happening before I even came into the picture. So while awaiting trial they take the kids from Sonja and give them to the dad and that’s when things really started to change on the kids stories. The state had the kids going to talk to the therapist and the therapist told them that something wasn’t making sense about the kids stories and she felt as if they were being coached and he fired the therapist. I asked my lawyer to have the therapist testify in trial but he couldn’t make it happen, I asked my lawyer for an autopsy expert but he couldn’t provide one. I felt like after I paid him $20,000 he just wasn’t working hard or in my best interest. Even the judge was biased. I asked for about 10 witnesses but the judge said that I could only do five and they could only testify on my character. I had witnesses that wanted to testify on behalf of my case, not on how I was in the community. But my lawyer wouldn’t fight for anything, so at trial the kids testified that I hit them all so they based that on as if I beat Giovanni and killed him that day. But I could never do that. I love him like he was my son. I did everything for him, taught him his ABC’s and how to count. I have my own kids that know their dad could never do something like this even many of the women that i’ve been with were willing to write letters on how I was with their kids and how the kids would love me. I just can’t believe i’m in this nightmare. But still after all the testimony was done I couldn’t believe the prosecutor's closing statement that said “ I know Mr.Ortiz didn’t do this intentionally “ and my thought was why am I being charged with murder then. Now I sit here with my last appeal denied by the supreme court and trying to find a lawyer to do my Habeas Corpus. I appreciate your time and give thanks to you if you even get a chance to read my story. Thank you for your time.
