(CN) — Defense lawyers for the man found guilty by a jury of the murder of University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts presented new evidence Tuesday in their bid for a new trial and a chance to show that a different person killed her.
After hearing testimony from defense witnesses, District Judge Joel Yates told the parties he would take the motion for a new trial under submission and issue a ruling later.
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.
This information came from an Iowa prison inmate who said he had heard the story from another man while the two were inmates in county jail. Another, unrelated source also came forward with a statement to law enforcement authorities Bahena Rivera’s lawyers say corroborated the prison inmate’s statement.
Marshalltown, Iowa, lawyers Chad and Jennifer Frese, Bahena Rivera’s defense attorneys, spent Tuesday's hearing presenting testimony from several witnesses in an effort to persuade Yates to order a new trial based on what they say is evidence that Tibbetts was murdered by someone other than Bahena Rivera.
Assistant Iowa Attorney General Scott Brown, the state’s chief prosecutor in the case, repeatedly objected to the defense lawyers’ efforts to tie Tibbetts’ abduction and murder to other people, arguing that the defense had not shown a connection between Tibbetts’ murder and the alleged sex-traffickers.
Yates for the most part allowed Bahena Rivera’s lawyers to introduce witness testimony and documents Tuesday, but he showed frustration at one point when Jennifer Frese replied to an objection by Brown by telling the judge that the purpose of the hearing was to tie the new evidence to the Tibbetts case.
“That’s why we are here today,” she said.
“Get there then,” the judge said.
Bahena Rivera had been scheduled to be sentenced on the first-degree murder conviction on July 15, but the sentencing hearing was postponed while Yates heard testimony on a defense motion to compel the state to produce new evidence that may be related to the Tibbetts case. The judge subsequently issued an order denying the motion, saying the new information requested by the defense either is not relevant to the defendant or it lacks a connection to how it is relevant to what must be proven for a new trial. He has since quashed the defense team’s subpoenas for documents from three law-enforcement agencies while allowing them to testify at Tuesday’s hearing.
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