SALEM – A Peabody man caught with nearly one-quarter of a kilo of cocaine approximately 19 years ago, but was on the lam until last year, pleaded guilty Tuesday and received five to eight years in state prison.William Rivera, 50, a transportation driver who last lived at 6.5 Shamrock St., changed his plea to guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate the drug laws before Salem Superior Court Judge Timothy Q. Feeley.The judge agreed to adopt the punishment offered by Assistant District Attorney Karen Hopwood and defense lawyer William J. Keefe.Hopwood said the charge arises out of an incident in Peabody on Nov. 8, 1991 when an undercover officer and a confidential witness went to the targeted home of Carlos R. Umpierre, 46, at 7 Central St. to purchase cocaine.They provided him with $8,000 in marked currency to purchase cocaine. Umpierre immediately placed a call on his phone to a beeper number, then spoke in Spanish to a person and told the buyers his delivery man would be there shortly.In the meantime, his wife looked out the window and suspected police were in the area. Umpierre told the buyers to leave.Rivera, however, had already arrived at the back of the house in his blue Oldsmobile and was proceeding upstairs when he was confronted by police and arrested.The beeper he was carrying contained the matching telephone number that Umpierre had phoned, Hopwood told Feeley.Nearly one-quarter of a kilo of cocaine was found on his person and in his Oldsmobile, according to reports.In asking the judge to adopt the recommended sentence, Hopwood said she recognized the age of the case. She acknowledged that the drugs have since been destroyed, but said at a trial she would have relied on the expert chemist’s records. She insisted the main target in the case was Umpierre, who pleaded guilty to the same charge and received four years in prison with probation in 1992.Keefe told Feeley that he has known Rivera for a number of years. He has four children, worked two jobs to support his family and essentially has no criminal record as he asked the judge to agree to the punishment.Rivera will probably serve a total of 30 months behind bars because truth in sentencing had not been mandatory at the time of the crime. Upon his release from prison, Rivera will be on parole for a number of months.Rivera was defaulted on the case in 1992, arraigned in February 2009 and has been held on $100,000 cash bail since.The judge credited Rivera the 485 days he has spent in jail awaiting trial on the case.