Lang
4/27/26
A former University of Iowa student has been sentenced to 50 years in prison after he tried to strangle and rob a woman outside the Iowa Memorial Union.
On Monday, Judge Kevin McKeever sentenced 22-year-old Ali Younes to 25 years for 1st Degree Robbery and another 25 years for Attempted Murder, with the sentences set to run consecutively. They’ll run concurrently with a ten-year sentence for 1st Degree Theft and five for Escape From Custody. The last charge came after Younes fled the country with help from his parents before his original trial was set to begin.
Prosecutors argued that Younes intended to kill Anne Rizzo, a woman he allegedly knocked to the ground and strangled unconscious on the IMU footbridge on the night of April 25, 2022. He then stole her earrings, valued at $25,000.
Investigators later found the earrings in a floss box in Younes’ girlfriend’s bathroom, where Younes said they would be.
Younes’ parents were each sentenced to five years in prison for helping their son flee the country.