The sentencing for an illegal alien convicted of murdering 20-year-old University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts has been scheduled for this month after a judge denied his request for a new trial.
Last week, Judge Joel Yates denied a motion by illegal alien Cristhian Bahena Rivera’s defense attorneys that sought to secure a new trial after two individuals named two men as being responsible for Tibbetts’ murder.
Now, Bahena Rivera’s sentencing hearing is set to take place on August 30.
As Breitbart News reported, the defense filed a motion to the court stating two individuals had come forward to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation on May 26 after Bahena Rivera took the witness stand and alleged he was kidnapped by two masked men who killed Tibbetts before he dumped her body in the cornfield and drove off, never hearing from the men again.
The individuals, a cellmate and an ex-girlfriend of 21-year-old Gavin Jones, alleged that Jones admitted to them on separate occasions to having helped murder Tibbetts with an accomplice, 24-year-old Dalton Hansen, after she was kidnapped and sex trafficked.
Bahena Rivera’s attorneys admitted in their motion to the court that the new allegations did not align with their clients’ chain of events. Likewise, the allegations did not explain how Bahena Rivera was able to lead investigators to Tibbetts’ body.
“Defendant’s trial strategy included casting doubt onto other individuals, such as Dalton Jack and Ron Pexa,” Yates wrote in his denial of the motion. “It is doubtful that adding another possible suspect, one with no apparent ties besides being in the same county as Mollie, would have a reasonable probability of change the result of trial.”
On May 28, twelve jurors, including three Hispanic Americans and nine white Americans from 19 to 71-years-old, found Bahena Rivera guilty of first-degree murder following a nearly two-week trial and less than eight hours of deliberation.
During the trial, the medical examiner who reviewed Tibbetts’ body told the jury that she was stabbed potentially up to 12 times by her killer. Tibbetts, the medical examiner said, suffered stab wounds to her head, right hand, neck, and torso.
The jury was relayed portions of the transcripts from a detailed testimony by the investigator to whom Bahena Rivera confessed murdering Tibbetts. Bahena Rivera said he saw Tibbetts jogging, chased her down, blacked out, then remembered driving with her body in the trunk of his car before dumping her in a cornfield.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
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