Ex-prosecutor hopeful van der Sloot arrest will yield leads
- Joran van der Sloot is the lead suspect in Natalee Holloway's disappearance
- He was extradited to the U.S. on fraud and extortion charges
- A former prosecutor hopes info about Holloway can be gleaned
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(NewsNation) — A former prosecutor who was involved in the 2010 indictment of Joran van der Sloot hopes his extradition to the United States could somehow lead to more information in the disappearance of Natalee Holloway.
Van der Sloot pleaded not guilty Friday to extortion and wire fraud, the only charges to be filed in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. The Alabama teen went missing in 2005 while on vacation in the Caribbean island of Aruba.
U.S. prosecutors said in 2010 that van der Sloot reached out to Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, seeking money to disclose the location of her daughter’s body. Beth Holloway paid, but the promise came up empty.
“I wish we could have made the case over her murder, but unfortunately, we didn’t have jurisdiction on a crime that occurred in Aruba,” said Michael Whisonant, a former assistant U.S. attorney who worked the case at the time. “We charged it with everything that we could.”
Van der Sloot was extradited from Peru, where he was serving a 28-year sentence for the 2010 murder of a Peruvian woman.
He will be returned to Peru after the case in the United States concludes.
“I’m hopeful that this prosecution might somehow lead us to what happened Natalie and where her body is buried,” Whisonant said Friday on “CUOMO.” “I don’t know that that would happen, but that would be a very good outcome.”
Holloway, 18, was on a high school graduation trip with classmates to the Caribbean island of Aruba when she went missing. She was last seen by friends as she was leaving a bar with van der Sloot.
A judge declared Holloway dead, but her body has never been found.
“He’s the last person to see her alive, it’s my opinion that yes, he was involved in Natalie’s disappearance,” Whisonant said.
Van der Sloot was arrested by Aruban authorities but later released due to lack of evidence. He and his brothers, who were also arrested, lied to police and said they dropped off Holloway at a hotel. He later changed his story and said he left her at a beach.
Explaining the lies in a 2006 interview with NewsNation host Chris Cuomo, who was then working at ABC, van der Sloot said he was scared.
“I had a girlfriend at the time, I didn’t want my dad to think bad of me, I didn’t’ want my friends to think bad of me,” van der Sloot said. “I didn’t want anyone to know I left her at the beach.”
NewsNation digital producer Cassie Buchman and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
