Joran van der Sloot, the suspect in the 2005 disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway, is expected to enter a guilty plea to federal charges. Van der Sloot is accused of extorting and defrauding Natalee’s mother. The specific charges and the sentence are unknown at this time.
Van der Sloot, who was one of the last people seen with Natalee before she vanished, was indicted in 2010 on federal charges of extortion and wire fraud. The indictment alleges that he plotted to sell information about the whereabouts of Natalee’s remains in exchange for $250,000.
According to Natalee’s family attorney, John Q. Kelly, a condition of the plea deal requires van der Sloot to reveal details about how Natalee died and how her body was disposed of. Kelly also stated that there would be no further investigation or search for Natalee’s remains.
After the hearing, Natalee’s mother, Beth Holloway, will hold a news conference to share what van der Sloot told FBI authorities. CNN has reached out for further information from Kelly and for comment from the US Justice Department and police in Aruba, where Natalee disappeared.
Van der Sloot has been serving a 28-year sentence in Peru for the 2012 murder of Stephany Flores. Under the agreement between Peru and the US, he will first return to Peru to finish his murder sentence before being brought back to the US to serve any sentence for the US-based charges.
The indictment reveals that Natalee’s mother wired $15,000 to van der Sloot’s bank account and gave him an additional $10,000 in person. However, van der Sloot later admitted through email that the information about Natalee’s remains was “worthless.”
Natalee was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot and two other men on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. Police in Aruba arrested and released van der Sloot and the Kalpoe brothers multiple times in connection with Natalee’s disappearance. The cases against them were eventually dropped in 2007 due to insufficient evidence. Five years later, a judge in Alabama declared Natalee legally dead.
The outcome of van der Sloot’s guilty plea and the information he provides about Natalee’s case will hopefully bring closure to her family and finally answer long-standing questions about her disappearance.