Jose Ibarra was charged with murder and other crimes in Riley's February death, and the guilty verdict was reached Wednesday by Athens-Clarke County Superior Court Judge H. Patrick Haggard.
The 26-year-old Ibarra had waived his right to a jury trial, meaning that Haggard alone heard and decided the case.
Ibarra is a member of the Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, according to The Washington Times.
According to court testimony, Ibarra, was flown from New York City to Georgia on a “humanitarian flight” in September of 2023. The taxpayer-funded flight left Kennedy Airport in Queens and landed in Atlanta, according to The New York Post.
Taxpayers funded Ibarra flight to South
To ease its own Migrant population crisis, New York officials set up what they called a “reticketing center” that provided migrants one-way plane tickets anywhere in the world.
Rosebeli Flores-Bellon an ex-roommate of Ibarra, testified Monday that she, Ibarra and an unknown number of other migrants flew to Georgia after requesting the free – to them – flight, The Post reported.
Ira Mehlman is media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
"It's certainly some measure of justice for the Riley family, but this is a murder that should have never happened in the first place. It was a direct consequence of the irresponsible policies of the Biden-Harris administration that opened the border, that released people into the country with clearly no meaningful vetting of these people before they were let go,” he said.
Mehlman says this case will give the incoming Trump administration the ammunition it needs to justify changing policies that have fueled the illegal alien invasion of the past four years.
“It is a condemnation of sanctuary policies such as New York City's. He had been arrested in New York City on other rather serious charges. They refused to turn them over to ICE. They simply released him, and he wound up murdering Laken Riley. So it is a small measure of justice, but Laken Riley should still be alive and starting her career as a nurse, not being the subject of a politically charged trial that could have been avoided in the first place"
Proud progressive DA ousted
The case had a profound political impact in Georgia as Deborah Gonzalez, the Democrat District Attorney for Athens-Clarke and Oconee counties, lost her reelection bid in a landslide, getting only 25% of the vote against Republican challenger Kalki Yalamanchili, Fox 5 Atlanta reported.
Gonzalez’ 2020 campaign, in the wake of the Black Lives Matter and various “defund the police” movements, was funded by progressive donors pushing for criminal justice reform, the television station reported.
Gonzalez at the time described herself as “unapologetically a Democrat” and a “progressive prosecutor.”
