Mollie Tibbetts update: Bahena Rivera denied new murder trial newsrepublican.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsrepublican.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Trent Rice
Aug 2, 2021
POWESHIEK COUNTY, Iowa The man convicted of killing Mollie Tibbetts won t be getting a new trial.
Poweshiek County District Court Judge Joel Yates says Cristhian Bahena Rivera is not entitled to a new trial based on the grounds his lawyers argued in court last week.
The attorneys said at Rivera s trial, and again at a hearing last week, that another man admitted to killing the University of Iowa student in 2018 and framing Rivera for the crime.
Rivera will now be sentenced on August 30th.
Under Iowa law, a First-Degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life prison sentence.
Cristhian Bahena Rivera’s request for a new trial in the killing of college student
Mollie Tibbetts.
“In reviewing the evidence and testimony provided at trial, the court finds the verdict was not contrary to the weight of the evidence,” wrote Judge
Joel Yates in a filing obtained by The Associated Press.
Bahena Rivera, 26, confessed to investigators that he saw Tibbetts, 20, while she was out jogging, approached her, blacked out, and then hid her dead body in a cornfield, prosecutors said. At trial, his defense insisted this was a false confession. Bahena Rivera testified that two unknown men appeared in his living room armed with a knife and gun, forced him to drive to Brooklyn, Iowa under a threat to his daughter and ex-girlfriend, and had him drive with Tibbetts’s body in the trunk of his car. In other words, the defense argued Bahena Rivera was the fall guy and that his confession was false.
Print this article
A judge denied a motion for a new trial from the man convicted of murder in the 2018 stabbing death of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts.
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, a farmhand who entered the United States illegally when he was a teenager, was convicted of first-degree murder on May 28 after a jury trial. Defense lawyers argued he was coerced into killing Tibbetts by masked agitators. Earlier in the month, Rivera s attorneys suggested he be allowed a new trial as two separate witnesses alleged a man named Gavin Jones confessed to the murder.
Judge Joel Yates denied the motion on Monday, paving the way for Rivera to be sentenced on Aug. 30 for the grisly killing, according to documents filed in Poweshiek County, Iowa. Yates cited multiple discrepancies in the versions of events presented at the May trial and in the motion for a new hearing.
ABC News
Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest?
OffOn
Cristian Bahena Rivera faces a sentence of life in prison without parole.
• 6 min read
Accused killer makes stunning claim in Mollie Tibbetts trial
Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who is accused of killing Mollie Tibbetts, claims she was killed by two masked mystery men.Jim Slosiarek/AP
An Iowa judge has rejected a motion for a new trial for the man convicted of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts.
Poweshiek County District Court Judge Joel Yates issued a written ruling on Monday denying Cristhian Bahena Rivera s bid for a new trial after he and his attorney s claimed he was framed for Tibbetts 2018 slaying by the real killers.