SAN DIEGO (CNS) - A social media personality who fatally shot his wife and another man inside an East Village high-rise apartment was sentenced Friday to two consecutive terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus 50 years to life.
Ali Abulaban, 32 -- who was known in online circles as a content creator dubbed "JinnKid" -- was convicted in May of two counts of first-degree murder for the Oct. 21, 2021, shooting deaths of Ana Abulaban, 28, and Rayburn Cardenas Barron, 29.
Both victims were shot on a couch inside the Abulabans' 35th-floor unit at the Spire San Diego apartments.
During the murder trial, which spanned nearly a month and included three days of testimony from Abulaban, Deputy District Attorney Taren Brast argued Abulaban was enraged that his wife sought to leave him and planned on killing her and any man she was with.
She told jurors Abulaban "was so possessive and controlling of Ana that if he could not have her, no one could and she couldn't live. And any man she was with could not live either. This case was all about power and control until the very end."
Abulaban and his defense attorney, Jodi Green, sought a voluntary manslaughter conviction and claimed that after months of suspecting his wife was cheating, Abulaban was overcome with emotion upon seeing her on the couch with another man and opened fire on the pair without any control over his faculties.
The defense's case also involved arguments that Abulaban suffered from undiagnosed mental health issues, a mounting cocaine addiction, and that he grew up in an abusive home, all of which the defense argued played a role in how he handled relationships as an adult and his emotional response to the downfall of his marriage.
Abulaban and Green reiterated in court at Friday's sentencing hearing that they believed the killings were committed in the heat of passion.
Green told San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser her client "is fundamentally stunted emotionally" due to those issues, which "left this imprint that formed him into the person that he is."
Abulaban apologized to the victims' family members in attendance, saying, "I am so incredibly sorry to each and every one of you that have been affected by this. I cannot imagine the pain that I have caused your families."
But regarding the trial's outcome, he said it was "truly unfortunate that despite the compelling evidence that this was a crime of passion, somehow the jury still landed on this verdict and they certainly wasted no time in doing so."
Along with first-degree murder, jurors found special-circumstance allegations of committing multiple murders true, plus allegations of using a gun in the killings. The special circumstance allegations ensured Friday's sentence would be life without parole, but Green requested that the judge run the life without parole terms concurrently, rather than consecutively. She also asked Fraser to strike the gun enhancements.
Fraser denied those requests and called the jury's decision "the only verdict a reasonable person could come up with."
The judge also excoriated Abulaban, calling him "a very selfish person" and questioned whether he was truly remorseful towards the victims.
"I know he's sorry about the consequences of going to prison for the rest of his life. But I can't say that I think he's sorry for killing these two innocent human beings," Fraser said.
One of several victim impact statements delivered during the hearing came from Ana's father, Ron Miller, who said he and Ana's mother still wonder what they could have done differently to stop what happened.
"I don't consider him a man," he said of Abulaban. "A man wouldn't do this. I want him to rot in prison."
Ana's sister, Hermae Sartin, said "Her absence has left a hole in my heart that can never be filled" and said Ana was "the most loving, patient, gentle, and forgiving person and this person took her away from us. He was the one who was supposed to protect his wife and child."
Barron's mother said in a statement read by the prosecutor that her son was "full of light with a whole life ahead of him."
Barron's sister, Jordana Barron, said Rayburn was the youngest of five siblings and her "baby brother and best friend." She said he had hoped to raise his own family someday, but "all that was robbed from him."
According to the prosecution, Abulaban was controlling and violent toward his wife throughout their relationship. Outside of the shooting, jurors heard about multiple incidents of domestic violence in the months leading up to the killings, some of which Abulaban admitted to committing during his testimony.
Though they were still married at the time of the shooting, Brast told jurors that due to her husband's abusive behavior, Ana Abulaban considered their relationship over, was seeking a divorce, and had booted Abulaban from their apartment.
Abulaban testified that his wife had not made it clear whether they might reconcile and Green argued to jurors that though Ana stated many times that she wanted to leave her husband, she repeatedly took him back, giving him "breadcrumbs of hope."
On the morning of Oct. 21, Abulaban drove to the apartment while his wife was out, vandalized the unit, and hid his daughter's iPad, which was transmitting audio via the messaging application Discord.
Abulaban testified that Ana had accused him of cheating with a woman who lived in their building, something he denied on the stand. He stated that he set up the iPad in order to catch Ana in the act of "doing the same things she's accusing me of doing."
While listening to the app, Abulaban heard his wife and Barron talking and sped over to the Spire apartments. Camera footage inside the apartment building shows Abulaban take the elevator up to the 35th floor, then sprint down the hallway towards the apartment just after the elevator doors open.
According to the prosecutor, multiple audio recordings of the shooting capture gunshots about one second after Abulaban entered the apartment.
During his testimony, Abulaban said that when he saw his wife and Barron on the couch, "Before I could stop myself, I snapped." He said that the next thing he knew, "I'm shooting and I can't stop."
After the shooting, he took a picture of the bodies and sent the picture to his mother. He testified that did not remember taking the picture, but said he later called 911 to get his wife and Barron medical attention because he wasn't certain whether they were dead.
Abulaban then picked up his 5-year-old daughter from her school and testified that while in the car with his daughter, he told her, "I hurt Mommy." He was arrested by police a short time later following a traffic stop.
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