Judge grants request to delay trial in extortion case against Joran van der Sloot

By Tina Burnside, CNN

(CNN) — A judge has granted a motion to delay the trial date in the case against Joran van der Sloot, a Dutch national accused in the alleged extortion of the mother of Natalee Holloway, the American teenager who disappeared during a high school graduation trip to Aruba in 2005.

Van der Sloot’s attorney, federal public defender Kevin Butler, filed the unopposed motion Monday asking for a delay to allow “the reasonable time necessary for effective preparation of trial,” according to court documents.

US Magistrate Judge Gray Borden granted the extension request not to go past October 2. A trial date is expected to be set later, the court order stated.

Van der Sloot, one of the last people seen with the 18-year-old Holloway before she vanished, was indicted in 2010 on federal charges of extortion and wire fraud in connection with a plot to sell information about the whereabouts of Holloway’s remains in exchange for $250,000, according to an indictment filed in the Northern District of Alabama.

He was transferred this month to the US from a prison in Peru, where he was serving a 28-year prison sentence for murder in a separate case.

A not guilty plea in the extortion case was entered June 9 in US federal court on van der Sloot’s behalf. He’s expected to remain in custody at Alabama’s Shelby County Jail, about 35 miles southeast of Birmingham, until his trial.

The deadline for pretrial motions and to inform the judge whether van der Sloot intends to plead guilty or go to trial was initially set for July 17.

In his request for a delay, Butler asked the judge for a 30-day continuance of all pretrial deadlines and a continuance of at least 60 days to prepare for trial, court documents stated.

According to the indictment, Holloway’s mother, Beth Holloway, wired $15,000 to a bank account van der Sloot held in the Netherlands and through an attorney gave him another $10,000 in person. Once he had the initial $25,000, van der Sloot showed the attorney, John Q. Kelly, where Natalee Holloway’s remains allegedly were hidden but later admitted by email the information was “worthless,” the indictment states.

The teenager was last seen 18 years ago with van der Sloot and two other men leaving a nightclub on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba. Police in Aruba arrested and released van der Sloot and brothers Deepak and Satish Kalpoe multiple times in 2005 and 2007 in connection with Holloway’s disappearance. Attorneys for the men maintained their innocence throughout the investigation.

In December 2007, the Aruban Public Prosecutor’s Office said none of the three would be charged and dropped the cases against them, citing insufficient evidence.

A judge in Alabama signed an order declaring Holloway legally dead five years later.

Last month, Peru agreed to temporarily transfer van der Sloot to face the charges in the US, after which he would be returned to Peru, where he has been serving time for the killing of 21-year-old Stephany Flores, the country’s judiciary said.

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CNN’s Jean Casarez, Steve Almasy and Aaron Cooper contributed to this report.