OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
7:40 AM – Saturday, January 31, 2026
A judge in Athens, Georgia, has decided against initiating a new trial for Venezuelan national Jose Antonio Ibarra, who is convicted of viciously killing nursing student Laken Riley.
Ibarra’s lawyers argued that his constitutional rights were violated during his late 2024 trial when the judge denied a motion to delay the trial to give an expert witness time to analyze DNA data, and blocked another to exclude some evidence pulled from a phone.
Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard wrote in an order on Monday that the evidence of Ibarra’s guilt was “overwhelming and powerful,” however, arguing that the 2024 trial’s evidence was not contested.
Haggard found Ibarra, 28, guilty of murder, kidnapping with bodily injury, aggravated battery and assault with intent to rape, hindering an emergency telephone call, tampering with evidence and concealing the death of another in November 2024, and sentenced him to life in prison.
A spokesperson for Ibarra’s legal team has said that they plan to file an appeal, for which they have 30 days.
Ibarra entered the United States illegally in 2022, under the Biden administration, and was allowed to stay while pursuing an immigration case.
He crossed paths with Riley in February 2024, while she was on a run at the University of Georgia campus, where she was studying nursing. Ibarra killed Riley while attempting to sexually assault her. Campus police testified that her clothing was partially removed when her body was found. Her cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma and asphyxiation.
Prosecutors said Ibarra was “hunting for females.”
The Laken Riley Act was signed a year later, when President Donald Trump took office for the second time. The legislation requires federal detention of illegal immigrants who commit local crimes, such as theft or assault. Had the law been passed earlier, Ibarra would have been detained for a shoplifting citation before ever encountering the 22-year-old.
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