The defense attorney representing the man charged with murdering 20-year-old college student Mollie Tibbetts says his client’s illegal alien status “has nothing to do with this case.”
Last month, police announced that Tibbetts’ body was found in a cornfield in her rural hometown of Brooklyn, Iowa after she was last seen jogging on July 18.
Illegal alien Cristhian Bahena-Rivera, a 24-year-old from Mexico, has been charged with first-degree murder in Tibbetts’ death after police say he admitted to confronting and chasing down the young woman. The illegal alien lived in a region of Iowa that was surrounded by sanctuary cities, as Breitbart News noted, and an initial autopsy report revealed that Bahena-Rivera allegedly stabbed Tibbetts to death.
After pleading not guilty this week and having his trial set for April 2019, Bahena-Rivera’s defense attorney, Chad Frese, told the Des Moines Register in an interview that the fact that his client is an illegal alien who has been living in the United States illegally for years “has nothing to do with” the death of Tibbetts or the upcoming murder trial.
“Our focus is Cristhian’s charge that he’s facing and the death of this woman,” Frese told Register reporter Stephen Gruber-Miller.
“Whether or not he’s an illegal or legal immigrant really has nothing to do with the facts of this case, so we don’t want to get into that argument at all,” Frese continued.
Bahena-Rivera was rewarded $5,000 in U.S. taxpayer money to fund a private investigation into Tibbetts’ death to fight the murder charges against him, Breitbart News reported. Frese argued in court that the illegal alien had a “constitutional right” to the taxpayer money.
According to police, Bahena-Rivera was the last person who saw Tibbetts jogging on the evening of July 18 in Brooklyn, Iowa, security camera footage reveals. That is the night Tibbetts went missing.
The illegal alien told police that Tibbetts was jogging when he saw her. That is when he said he approached Tibbetts and started talking to her. After Tibbetts allegedly told Bahena-Rivera that she would call the police if he did not stop following her, the illegal alien allegedly chased her and says he “blacked out” after this.
The following month, Tibbetts’ body was found in a cornfield where prosecutors say Bahena-Rivera placed corn stalks over her to hide her body.
Bahena-Rivera is being held on a $5 million cash bond. The illegal alien waived his right to have a trial heard within 90 days.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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