The prime suspect in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway is expected to admit in court today that he extorted money from her mother by promising to reveal the location of the teenager’s body.
Joran van der Sloot, 35, is expected to disclose the real location as part of a plea deal in an Alabama federal court.
The Messenger news website has reported that prosecutors obtained an email in which the Dutch national claimed to a friend that he and his father, Paulus, took a boat to dispose of Holloway’s body at sea.
That claim has not been verified by his legal team and van der Sloot has made numerous false claims about the involvement of his father, who died in 2010.
The federal court hearing in Birmingham on Wednesday is likely to answer questions the Holloway family have been asking for nearly 20 years.
Natalee Holloway, 18, was on a high school graduation trip to Aruba when she disappeared in May 2005. She was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot, who was then 17.
He is facing charges of extortion and wire fraud over the allegations that he tried to sell information to the teenager’s mother, Beth Holloway.
Beth Holloway is expected to give a statement following today’s hearing.
Her lawyer, John Q. Kelly, told Fox News Digital that van der Sloot is expected to take a plea deal, which is conditional on him releasing details on how Natalee Holloway died and what happened to her body.
The plea and sentencing hearing is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. in a Birmingham courtroom.
According to federal prosecutors, van der Sloot tried to extort $250,000 from the family —$25,000 upfront for the information and the rest to be paid once the body was positively identified.
The prosecutors allege that van der Sloot lied to Beth Holloway about where her daughter’s remains were located, in a scheme they say took place between March 29, 2010, and May 17, 2010.
At a preliminary hearing in June this year, he pleaded not guilty to extortion and wire fraud.
To answer the federal charges in Alabama, he was extradited to the U.S. from Peru, where he is serving a prison sentence for the murder of Stephany Flores, 21.
Van der Sloot moved to the South American country after Holloway’s disappearance and later met college student Flores. He killed her on May 30, 2010, after she discovered he was wanted for questioning in the 2005 case.
He was sentenced to 28 years for Flores’ murder in 2012. More time has since been added to his term for drug smuggling within the prison system.
If he pleads guilty to the extortion and wire fraud charges in Alabama, he will first finish his prison term in Peru and then be sent to the U.S. to serve his sentence.
The Messenger reported that van der Sloot had written an email in 2010, claiming that he and his father, Paulus, rented a boat two days after Holloway’s disappearance and “took care of things.”
This email was sent to someone named “David G.” from van der Sloot’s Yahoo account and has now been obtained by federal prosecutors, according to the news site.
The same Yahoo account was allegedly used to contact Holloway’s family.
The email reportedly states: “We went for a ride and took care of things. That’s all I’m going to say.”
Van der Sloot has made a number of contradictory claims about what happened to the teenager over the years. During a 2010 meeting with the Holloway family’s lawyer, van der Sloot allegedly said his father dumped her body at a construction site. No evidence was ever found to corroborate that claim.
In 2008, Fox News show On the Record aired part of an audio recording provided by van der Sloot, which he claimed was a phone conversation between himself and his father Paulus, in which Paulus was supposed to be aware of his son’s involvement in human trafficking. The Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf reported that the “father’s” voice was almost certainly that of Joran, trying to speak in a lower tone.
Newsweek has contacted the Holloway family’s lawyers for comment.
