Laken Riley murder case: Motions hearing for Jose Ibarra in Athens court Friday

ATHENS, Ga. — Attorneys representing Jose Antonio Ibarra, the man accused of murdering Laken Riley while on campus at the University of Georgia in Athens in February, have filed to have evidence suppressed and witnesses barred from testifying at trial.

According to court records, the related motions in court are up for review and debate at the Friday morning hearing.

Those motions focus on several factors of the case, including where the trial should be held and what evidence may or may not be admissible.

The trial is currently set to start jury selection on Nov. 13 with opening statements expected to start the following week.

Court records from the Clarke County Superior Court show that Ibarra’s defense team has filed motions to:

• Separate his peeping Tom charge from the rest of the trial, citing an unrelated victim to the case
• Suppress evidence collected from social media accounts associated with or used by Ibarra, as well as the contents of two phones seized by law enforcement and location data supplied by Google
• Allow a fingerprint expert to testify virtually due to an inability to travel to court in person
• Move the trial location to avoid a potentially prejudiced jury due to the high publicity of the case

As previously reported, Ibarra is accused of hitting and strangling Riley, with the intent to sexually assault her, on Feb. 22. He was arrested in Athens the next day, Feb. 23. Riley was found near running trails on campus after one of her friends told police she had not returned from a run earlier that morning.

In connection to Riley’s death, Ibarra was charged with malice murder, multiple counts of felony murder and counts for kidnapping, aggravated assault, aggravated battery, hindering a phone call to emergency services and tampering with evidence.

Attorney’s for Ibarra said the process law enforcement used to seize evidence and search for more regarding the Riley murder case against Ibarra were performed unlawfully, and have asked that the state bar the evidence produced from those actions.

According to court filings, search warrants obtained after Ibarra’s detention by UGA police officers on Feb. 23 “without reasonable suspicion that he had committed any offense” happened when he was arrested without a warrant at his apartment and kept after despite what the attorneys say was an absence of probable cause.

After Ibarra was detained, a UGA detective got a search warrant for his apartment, which Ibarra’s lawyers say was “void on its face” and issued without probable cause while also being overly broad for what officers could look for and seize as evidence.

The factors of this initial detention and search warrant, accused of being unlawful, are being described as the source of “fruit of the poisonous tree” for all subsequent evidence seized and search warrants executed, so the defense is requesting the court suppress all of it at trial.

The evidence collected in the case includes two Samsung Galaxy phones said to belong to Ibarra, in addition to the contents of his social media accounts and accounts he’s associated with. Additional data provided to law enforcement by Google, Inc. for geolocations of the cell phones in question are also being described as the same “poisonous fruit” and included in the motion to suppress.

Ibarra’s peeping Tom charge, Count 10 in the indictment, is due to an accusation that Ibarra had looked through the window of an apartment in a university housing building the same day Riley was killed. That’s why his attorneys have asked the court to separate it from the felony murder trial focused on Riley’s death.

The defendant has maintained his innocence in court, pleading not guilty to the charges of murdering Riley and the others. Ibarra and his attorneys are expected in court at 10 a.m. on Friday.