By Joseph Ax
(Reuters) -A Venezuelan migrant was convicted on Wednesday and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for murdering Laken Riley, a Georgia nursing student whose killing became a rallying cry for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump as he attacked illegal immigration during the campaign.
Jose Ibarra, 26, who entered the U.S. illegally, was found guilty on murder and other charges by Judge Patrick Haggard in Athens-Clarke County Superior Court. As the judge read the verdict aloud, Riley's family members and friends sobbed while Ibarra sat stony-faced.
Haggard heard the evidence and rendered the verdict after Ibarra waived his right to a jury trial.
Trump and other Republicans often cited Riley's murder in claiming falsely that migrants who crossed the southern border illegally were responsible for a wave of violent crime, part of the president-elect's argument for stricter border policies and aggressive deportations.
"JUSTICE FOR LAKEN RILEY! The Illegal who killed our beloved Laken Riley was just found GUILTY on all counts for his horrific crimes," Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social.
Prosecutors said Ibarra encountered Riley, 22, on a wooded trail while she was out running on Feb. 22 and killed her after she resisted his efforts to rape her. She was a nursing student at Augusta University in Athens.
In victim impact statements delivered in court ahead of the sentencing, Riley's family and friends described her as a caring, selfless and devout person who loved running and was committed to serving others.
"Laken had a beautiful and bright future," her mother, Allyson Phillips, told the court. "She was smart, hardworking, kind, thoughtful, and most importantly, she was a child of God."
In her closing statement earlier on Wednesday, prosecutor Sheila Ross called the evidence against Ibarra "overwhelming," including DNA under her fingernails that authorities linked to the defendant, scratches on Ibarra's body and video footage of a man matching Ibarra's description throwing a bloodied jacket into a dumpster soon after the murder.
Defense attorneys argued that the evidence was circumstantial and could not rule out another attacker.
Riley's case made national headlines in March during President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, when firebrand U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene interrupted his speech to demand that he "say her name."
Biden went off-script to mention Riley, whom he described as an innocent woman killed by an "illegal." Republicans criticized him for appearing to mispronounce Riley's first name, while Biden later apologized for using the word "illegal" to refer to a person.
Biden, then the Democratic nominee for president, dropped out of the race in July and was replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost earlier this month to Trump.
Trump has vowed to pursue mass deportations of immigrants after he is sworn into office in January.