Ron Pexa News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Bahena's motion "greatly downplays the discrepancies between his testimony at trial and the account that (new witness Arne Maki) reports he was told by Jones," Yates wrote. "For example, the specific details about how Mollie Tibbetts was murdered are vastly different." "Had both versions of events been presented at trial, the jury would have had to make a credibility determination not between the State’s witnesses and those of the defense, which is a typical scenario, but between the Defendant and his own witness," he added later. Bahena's attorneys had also argued prosecutors failed to tu...

View Comments The judge overseeing the case against Cristhian Bahena Rivera voiced skepticism repeatedly Thursday as the former farmhand's defense attorneys tried to prove there are grounds to grant him a new trial.  Bahena was convicted in May of first-degree murder in the 2018 abduction and stabbing of Mollie Tibbetts. In the week before he was scheduled to be sentenced, his attorneys filed motions to delay that hearing and order a new trial, arguing that new evidence had emerged pointing to additional possible suspects. Thursday's hearing, set to hear that evidence, involved multiple wit...

Cristhian Bahena Rivera deserves a new trial in the 2018 killing of Iowa college student Mollie Tibbetts included testimony from law enforcement agents who were in some instances loathe to the fact that the defense was calling their assessments into question. Bahena Rivera’s attorneys, Chad Frese and Jennifer Frese, recently filed motions for a new trial and to arrest a judgment of conviction against the defendant. Bahena Rivera has yet to be sentenced because his defense team says new tips provided to law enforcement toward the conclusion of his trial warrant a reexamination of the cas...

Jurors began their deliberations Thursday in the first degree murder trial of Cristhian Bahena Rivera, who is accused of killing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts in 2018. He's pleaded not guilty and has alleged that two masked men abducted her and forced him at gunpoint to participate.

Testifying in court Wednesday, Cristhian Bahena Rivera denied killing Mollie Tibbetts, instead blaming two masked and armed men for her disappearance and death. He claimed they forced him at gunpoint to participate, and then threatened his family, which he says prevented him from alerting law enforcement.