By American Renaissance | Created at 2024-11-21 18:47:21 | Updated at 2024-11-22 10:49:57
16 hours ago
Tren de Aragua gang member Jose Ibarra was sentenced to life without parole Wednesday for the vicious murder of promising nursing student Laken Riley in a case that ignited a national firestorm over the Biden administration’s open border policy and coddling of illegal immigrants.
Laken Riley
Jose Antonio Ibarra
The sentencing was meted out a little more than two hours after Judge Patrick Haggard announced the guilty verdict on all charges on the fourth day of the Athens, Georgia, murder trial, in which 29 witnesses were called by the prosecution.
The illegal migrant was described as a “sick, twisted, and evil coward” in series of heartbreaking victim impact statements from Riley’s loved ones before the sentencing. He reacted to the harsh words with cold detachment as a translator whispered them into his ear.
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Her mom, Allyson Phillips, said, “Jose Ibarra took no pity on my scared, panicked and struggling child.”
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In its closing argument, the defense tried to pin the vicious killing on Diego Ibarra, arguing Jose was the wrong body type to be the killer.
“Jose was short, he was chubby,” defense attorney Kaitlyn Beck said as she made a last ditch attempt to sow reasonable doubt before the judge made his ruling on the verdict.
“She was fast, she could have outrun him,” Beck added. “But there’s another suspect in this case who is taller, who is more physically fit.”
But Ross shot that down, saying Diego would need “magic pixie dust” or “Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak” to have pulled off the murder.
Haggard returned to the bench just 19 minutes after the sides presented their closing arguments to deliver the verdicts.
Sobs filled the gallery and Riley’s family held hands as Haggard read off the guilty verdicts for felony murder, malice murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated assault with intent to rape, and Peeping Tom charges.
Ibarra remained motionless and expressionless in the courtroom as he was convicted on all counts.
Riley was brutally killed Feb. 22 as she jogged on the University of Georgia campus, not far from Augusta University, where the well-liked 22-year-old was pursing her nursing degree.
Ibarra, 26, attempted to sexually assault the coed but ended up smashing her head with a rock and asphyxiating her when she fiercely battled back.
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Ibarra ended up in Athens courtesy of a taxpayer-funded flight provided by the administration, traveling from Kennedy Airport in Queens to Atlanta, Ga., in September 2023, New York City sources said.
The flight — which took place less than six months before he hunted Riley down as she jogged — was paid for out of federal funds under a Biden administration program that provided one-way flights for migrants to anywhere in the world.
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