XPost: alt.fan.states.iowa, alt.politics.obama, sac.politics
XPost: talk.politics.guns
Cristhian Bahena Rivera was sentenced Monday to life in prison
without the possibility of parole for the 2018 killing of
University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts.
Judge Joel D. Yates told Bahena Rivera, "You, and you alone,
forever changed the lives of those who loved Mollie Tibbetts.
And for that, you and you alone will receive the following
sentence."
Bahena Rivera, wearing a mask and headphones, was stoic as Yates
told him he would serve a "lifetime sentence with no eligibility
for parole."
Bahena Rivera, 27, was sentenced to the maximum penalty under
the law in a high-profile case that also became politicized, in
part because of the defendant's status as an undocumented
immigrant.
Earlier this month, Yates rejected a request for a new trial for
Bahena Rivera, who was convicted May 28 of first-degree murder
in the death of 20-year-old Tibbetts.
Yates dismissed Bahena Rivera’s claim that newly discovered
evidence implicated other alleged suspects in Tibbetts' slaying.
In a 13-page decision, Yates said the evidence wasn’t new nor
would it change the outcome of the trial. A jury deliberated for
seven hours over two days before convicting Bahena Rivera.
Yates also rejected claims by Bahena Rivera’s lawyers that
prosecutors suppressed evidence.
At the trial, Bahena Rivera took the witness stand and claimed
two masked men were responsible for the murder but forced him to
participate at gunpoint.
Tibbetts’ homicide became a hot-button political issue.
Bahena Rivera, a farmhand, led investigators to Tibbetts’ body
in a Brooklyn, Iowa, cornfield nearly one month after she went
jogging July 18, 2018, and vanished.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/man-convicted-murdering- iowa-student-mollie-tibbetts-sentenced-life-prison-n1278038
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