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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — A judge on Monday rejected a convicted
man’s request for a new trial in the 2018 killing of University
of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts, whose body was found in a
cornfield weeks after she disappeared while out for a run near
her small hometown.

Judge Joel Yates’ ruling cleared the way for sentencing to
proceed Aug. 30 in the trial of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who was
convicted in May of first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death. The
former farmhand, who came to the U.S. illegally as a teenager,
faces a sentence of life in prison.

Yates rejected efforts by Bahena Rivera’s attorneys to implicate
others, saying much of the evidence they presented after he was
convicted was known to them before the verdict was handed down.
To grant a new trial, any additional evidence would have to be
new and revealed after the verdict, he wrote.

The judge also said many of the new allegations conflicted with
trial testimony and evidence presented by Bahena Rivera’s own
witnesses.

“In reviewing the evidence and testimony provided at trial, the
court finds the verdict was not contrary to the weight of the
evidence,” Yates wrote.

During questioning by police, Bahena Rivera acknowledged that he
encountered Tibbetts as she was running near her small eastern
Iowa hometown of Brooklyn and he led investigators to the field
where her body lay hidden under cornstalks.

But during his trial, he claimed publicly for the first time
that two masked men kidnapped him at gunpoint from his trailer,
forced him to drive to where Tibbetts was running on a rural
road, killed her, put her body in his trunk and made him dispose
of it. He said he didn’t tell investigators about the two men
earlier because they had threatened to kill his ex-girlfriend
and young daughter.

Bahena Rivera was to be sentenced last month. But toward the end
of the testimony portion of his trial, two new witnesses came
forward independently of one another and told police that a
local 21-year-old man told them he had killed Tibbetts. Defense
lawyers requested a new trial based on that and other newly
discovered information, and Yates agreed to postpone sentencing
while he considered their request.

At a hearing last week, Bahena Rivera’s lawyers sought to link
Tibbetts’ death to another young woman’s report of having been
kidnapped and sexually assaulted at an area home used for sex
trafficking in the summer of 2018, and the recent disappearance
of an 11-year-old boy from the same county. A 50-year-old
suspected methamphetamine dealer has been investigated in both
cases but hasn’t been charged in either, and prosecutors say he
has no ties to Tibbetts.

Prosecutors have said they were confident that Bahena Rivera
killed Tibbetts and they pointed out that his own account of
what happened didn’t align with what the two new witnesses told
police.

“We are pleased that the judge upheld the jury’s verdict and we
look forward to moving to sentencing,” said Lynn Hicks, a
spokesman for the state attorney general.

Attorneys for Bahena Rivera did not immediately reply to
messages seeking comment.

https://apnews.com/article/trials-mollie-tibbetts- 5d360068d91900e01c9f0146cc716126

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