Illegal Alien Charged With Killing Mollie Tibbetts Worked Under The Name 'John Budd'

The Mexican man charged with abducting and killing an Iowa college student was known for years on the dairy farm where he worked by another name: John Budd.

The alias has emerged as Cristhian Bahena Rivera’s employer, a dairy farm operation owned by a prominent Republican family, faces questions over whether its managers were aware of any warning signs that he may have been in the country illegally.

The name under which Rivera was hired and paid for the last four years was confirmed by three people with knowledge of his employment history, according to the Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information during an ongoing criminal investigation. One of the people said Rivera’s work identity as John Budd appears in official government records.

The Des Moines Register could not independently confirm the information reported Wednesday by the AP. Law enforcement officials, including ones with the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, and Bahena Rivera's lawyers, Chad and Jennifer Frese, would not say whether he used the name.

Bahena Rivera's employer, Yarrabee Farms, also declined to confirm or deny Rivera’s work identity. Lori Chesser, an immigration employment lawyer advising the farm, said that companies cannot discriminate against workers based on how they look or how their names sound.

Employers typically do not face legal consequences for hiring a worker under false documents as long as they were not involved in obtaining them and had no other obvious reason to suspect they are fraudulent, said Bob Teig, a retired federal prosecutor in Iowa.

“Absent unusual circumstances, it would be difficult to show they knew any more than what they were told,” Teig said, adding that it would be “pretty racist” to assume a John Budd could not be Hispanic.

Whether anyone else knew Bahena Rivera as John Budd is unclear. The 24-year-old had a Facebook page under his real name, and his account listed many friends from the central Iowa area. He has a girlfriend and a young daughter, his former attorney has said.

Bahena Rivera had neither an Iowa-issued identification under any name nor any known criminal history or interactions with police. It’s unclear who owned the car that he allegedly used to follow Tibbetts.