(Radio Iowa) – A judge says he’ll rule by Friday on whether the defense attorneys for the man convicted of murdering Mollie Tibbetts should have access to state investigation records in two other cases. The attorneys for Cristhian Bahena Rivera say they learned hours after a jury convicted Bahena that another man was claiming he killed Tibbetts. Attorney Jennifer Frese suggests there may be a link with the case of a missing 11-year-old boy from Montezuma. “Three people have vanished out of thin air in this small rural county: Mollie Tibbetts, Xavior Harrelson and the woman that reported being abducted in May of 2018 and being sex trafficked,” Frese said.

Scott Brown, the lead prosecutor on the case, says Bahena’s attorneys are on a fishing expedition. “This whole issue that they raised with Xavior Harrelson. That is a pending investigation. The fact that they would put this information in a public document, which we did try to get ahead of, is unconscionable in my mind.” Brown says he offered to stop the trial in May after learning two people had claimed to have heard another man confess he was the one who killed Tibbetts, but Bahena’s attorneys declined. Brown says the account Bahena’s lawyers presented in court today was confusing. “No evidence supports it. None,” Brown said “Zero!”

Bahena was to be sentenced today (Thursday), but the trial judge granted a delay to consider the request to pursue new leads in the case. Chad Frese, one of Bahena’s attorneys, suggests prosecutors sat on information about a woman who says she was kidnapped in Brooklyn two months before Tibbetts was abducted. “There’s evidence here that 10 kids in this area have gone missing. We’ve provided that,” Frese said. “There’s something rotten in this area.”

The judge plans to hold a hearing July 27th to consider defense motions for a new trial.