XPost: alt.fan.states.iowa, alt.politics.immigration, alt.journalism.newspapers   
   XPost: sac.politics   
   From: criminally-complicit@sfchronicle.com   
      
   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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