The man who entered the U.S. illegally and is suspected of killing Georgia nursing student Laken Riley was flown to Georgia at taxpayer expense, his roommate testified on Monday.
Jose Ibarra’s roommate was called to the stand and, through an interpreter, told the court that Ibarra and others were staying at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City when they requested a humanitarian flight to Georgia. Those flights are funded with taxpayer dollars.
The roommate of Jose Ibarra, the Venezuelan illegal accused of killing Laken Riley, testified they got a free “humanitarian flight” from NYC to Atlanta in Sept. 2023.
They were living at the Roosevelt Hotel.
Prosecutors say after arriving in Athens, GA, Ibarra murdered Riley.… pic.twitter.com/ttRIMsN8RF
— Wesley Hunt (@WesleyHuntTX) November 18, 2024
Prosecutors on Monday also used a jailhouse phone call between Ibarra and his wife to place him on the University of Georgia campus in February on the day Riley was killed. FBI analyst Abeisis Ramirez translated the phone call for the court.
“She said that she thinks it’s crazy that they don’t have anyone else’s DNA. They only have his,” Ramirez testified, according to Fox News.
Fox News contributor Paul Mauro said the phone call placed Ibarra at the scene.
“She very clearly doesn’t believe him. … She says, at one point, ‘Jose, I know you,’ a very … telling moment,” Mauro said of the phone call between Ibarra and his wife. “And then at one point … the real crushing statement is when she says to him, ‘I can’t believe somebody could see somebody dying and not call 911.'”
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Mauro added that the conversation appeared to “be a reference to him having told her, I was there, I saw the body, but I didn’t call 911, and I didn’t do it.”
Ibarra, 26, waived his right to a jury trial and will instead leave his fate in the hands of a judge, CNN reported. Ibarra is charged with 10 counts, including murder, kidnapping, and aggravated assault with intent to rape Riley, who was found murdered after she went jogging at the University of Georgia in Athens.
Also on Monday, prosecutors explained that Ibarra’s DNA was found in skin cells underneath Riley’s fingernails, indicating she fought for her life. The prosecution also displayed images of Ibarra with scratches to his arms and hands, taken shortly after Riley was killed.
“On Feb. 22, Jose Ibarra put on a black hat, a hoodie-style jacket, and some black kitchen-style disposable gloves, and he went hunting for females on the University of Georgia campus,” prosecutor Sheila Ross said in her opening statements on Friday, according to Fox News.
“When Laken Riley refused to be his rape victim, he bashed her head in with a rock repeatedly,” Ross added.
Ibarra’s defense attorney said during his opening statements that there wasn’t enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ibarra killed Riley and suggested there was no evidence to allege sexual assault was a motivating factor.