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Attorneys for the man accused of killing Laken Riley have filed motions to suppress evidence

FILE - Defense attorneys Kaitlyn Beck and John Donnelly present the not guilty plea for Jose Ibarra to sign during Ibarra's court appearance on Friday, May 31, 2024, in Athens, Ga. A man accused of killing a nursing student whose body was found on the University of Georgia campus pleaded not guilty Friday, Aug. 2, 2024, to murder and other charges in her death. A grand jury in early May returned an indictment charging Jose Ibarra, 26, with murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping and other crimes in the February killing of Laken Hope Riley. (Nell Carroll/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File, Pool)
(Nell Carroll/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File, Pool)
Defense attorneys Kaitlyn Beck and John Donnelly present the not guilty plea for Jose Ibarra to sign during Ibarra's court appearance on Friday, May 31, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Nell Carroll/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File, Pool)

The motion regarding Jose Ibarra specifically mentions two cell phones owned by Ibarra, DNA samples taken from Ibarra, the contents of his social media accounts including Snapchat, and Google location data. The motion accuses law enforcement officers of entering Ibarra’s apartment without a proper warrant the day after Riley was killed. The motion claims that other search warrants issued in March weren’t based on probable cause and were “fruit of the poisonous tree.”

There is no listing for a hearing date for the judge to consider the motion. The trial is currently scheduled to begin November 13th.

Jeff has delivered morning news at WUGA Radio for more than a decade. He was among a team at CNN that won a George Foster Peabody Award in 1991 for an educational product based on the fall of the Soviet Union. He also won an Edward R. Murrow Award from Radio Television Digital News Association in 2007 for producing a series for WSB Radio on financial scams. Jeff is a graduate of the Babcock Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University (MBA) and holds a BS in Business Administration from Campbell University, both in North Carolina.
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