(CN) — An Iowa judge Monday denied a new trial for the man convicted of murdering University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in 2018.
Dairy farm worker Cristhian Bahena Rivera, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, was convicted in May of first-degree murder in a case that captured national attention following the mysterious disappearance of the 20-year-old student in July 2018.
Bahena Rivera’s car was spotted on a security video near where Tibbetts had been on an evening jog in the town of Brooklyn, Iowa. He later led authorities to her body in a remote cornfield, and Tibbetts’ DNA was matched with blood stains in the trunk of his car.
Shortly after prosecutors and defense lawyers rested their cases on May 28, new evidence was presented to Bahena Rivera’s defense team alleging that Tibbetts was murdered by a different man involved in a sex-trafficking ring near Tibbetts’ home town.
Bahena Rivera’s defense lawyers, Chad and Jennifer Frese of Marshalltown, Iowa, argued at a July 27 hearing before Iowa District Court Judge Joel Yates that they should have the chance to present evidence at a new trial that a different person — Gavin Jones — had confessed to a fellow Iowa jail inmate of having stabbed Tibbetts to death.
In a ruling issued Monday, Yates denied the defendant’s motion for a new trial.
The judge said Rivera failed to meet the legal burden of showing that the substance of new evidence was discovered after the jury delivered its verdict, or that it would have made a difference. Evidence that Jones allegedly confessed to killing Tibbetts was, in fact, known to the defense lawyers prior to the conclusion of the trial, Yates wrote.
Even assuming that the evidence was not discovered until after the verdict was returned, or could not have been discovered with due diligence, Yates wrote, “the alleged confession of Gavin Jones would not have changed the result of the trial. Defendant, in his motion, greatly downplays the discrepancies between his testimony at trial and the account that [the other jail inmate] reports he was told by Jones.”
"It is reasonable to conclude that the jury would have decided either Jones or the defendant was not being truthful," Yates added.
Bahena Rivera’s lawyers also based their bid for a new trial on their argument that the judge’s jury instruction was in error regarding reasonable doubt, that the jury verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence, and that state prosecutors violated a rule requiring the disclosure of evidence to the defense.
Judge Yates rejected all three of those arguments, as well.
A request for comment from Bahena Rivera’s defense lawyers was not immediately returned Monday afternoon.
“We’re pleased the judge upheld the jury’s verdict and we’re looking forward to the sentencing,” a spokesman for the Iowa Attorney General’s office, which led the Bahena Rivera prosecution, said in a statement Monday,
Sentencing is set for Aug. 30.
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