Natalee Holloway suspect Joran van der Sloot getting divorced after prison drug smuggling scandal
MOUNTAIN BROOK, Ala. – EXCLUSIVE – Despite brutally killing a young woman and being the prime suspect in the unsolved disappearance of another, he found love in prison.
But that appears to be over, according to his attorney. Joran van der Sloot, the 36-year-old suspect in the unsolved 2005 disappearance of Alabama high school student Natalee Holloway, is getting divorced.
He married Leidy Figueroa in a prison ceremony while serving a 28-year sentence for the brutal murder of Stephany Flores, a Peruvian business student whom he met at a casino and later beat to death in his hotel room.
Figueroa was seven months pregnant at the time of their wedding.
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He told her he wanted to marry her all over again once his sentence was up, The Associated Press reported at the time.
But she is calling it quits with van der Sloot, who went on to face charges of trafficking drugs inside prison with the help of another girlfriend, his lawyer Maximo Altez told Fox News Digital.
Authorities in Peru on Tuesday announced that van der Sloot, who was indicted in a federal court in Alabama in 2010 on charges of extortion and wire fraud in a twisted plot targeting Holloway’s mother, would be extradited to the United States to stand trial.
The deal will temporarily place him in American custody, and after his trial, he’ll be returned to Peru to finish his prison sentence. His term is up in 2038. After that, he would be sent to the U.S. again to serve a sentence if he is convicted.
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As the last person seen with Holloway, van der Sloot has been the prime suspect in her disappearance and presumed death. Exactly five years after she vanished, van der Sloot killed Flores and fled to Chile. He was convicted two years later and sentenced to 28 years.
While serving his sentence he was accused of trafficking drugs in prison in a plot in which a different girlfriend was accused of smuggling contraband inside. He was convicted, and a judge tacked on seven years to his sentence.
Holloway was visiting Aruba on a trip to celebrate high school graduation with a large group of friends from Mountain Brook, Alabama, and vanished after she left a night club with van der Sloot and two of his pals, Satish and Deepak Kalpoe, on the night before she was supposed to fly home.
Van der Sloot is not charged in Holloway’s death, but is accused of trying to extort her mother for $250,000.
If the government of Peru had not agreed to extradite him now, he would have been sent to the U.S. at the end of his sentence in 2038, Altez said.
Authorities in the South American country said they had agreed to the move in part because witnesses were starting to age.
Van der Sloot and the Kalpoes were arrested and released more than once in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. She was ruled legally dead by an Alabama court in 2012.
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