By Jozef Ax
(Reuters) -A Venezuelan migrant was convicted on Wednesday of killing Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student whose killing became a rallying cry for newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump as he attacked illegal immigration during the campaign.
Jose Ibarra, 26, who entered the U.S. illegally, was found guilty of murder and other charges by Judge Patrick Haggard in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court. As he read the verdict aloud, Riley’s family members and friends could be heard sobbing as Ibarra sat stony-faced.
Haggard heard the evidence and handed down the sentence after Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial.
Trump and other Republicans often cited Riley’s killing, falsely claiming that migrants crossing the southern border illegally were responsible for a wave of violent crime.
Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley, 22, on a wooded trail while she was running on Feb. 22 and killed her after she resisted his attempts to rape her.
In her closing statement earlier Wednesday, prosecutor Sheila Ross called the evidence against Ibarra “overwhelming,” including DNA under her fingernails that authorities linked to the defendant, scratches on Ibarra’s body and video footage of a man matching Ibarra’s description wearing a bloody jacket threw the body. a dumpster shortly after the murder.
Defense lawyers argued that the evidence was circumstantial and could not rule out a new attacker.
Riley’s case made national news in March during President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, when U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupted his speech to demand he “say her name.”
Biden went off script to mention Riley, whom he described as an innocent woman killed by an “illegal.” Republicans criticized him for mispronouncing Riley’s first name, while Biden later apologized for using the word “illegal” to refer to a person.
Biden, then the Democratic nominee for president, dropped out of the race in July and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost to Trump earlier this month.
Trump has pledged to pursue mass deportations of immigrants after he is sworn into office in January.
(Reporting by Joseph AxEditing by Bernadette Baum and Bill Berkrot)
