SAN DIEGO, Calif. — A TikTok star charged with murder admitted on the stand Tuesday he had a violent relationship with his wife but didn’t talk about the moment he pulled the trigger, leaving her and her friend dead.
Ali Abulaban, who has a large following and is known as JinnKid online, said he had punched his wife Ana in the face in the past.
“Slapping Ana? I would never do that in public. I mean, I never did that," Abulaban said while answering a question from his defense attorney.
He later admitted he punched her three times in the face during one incident and testified she, too, was violent.
“She lunges at me. She punches me three times in my face before I’m even awake,” Abulaban said.
The TikTok personality is facing first-degree murder charges for the fatal shooting of Ana and her friend Rayburn Barron at an apartment in East Village in 2021.
He spent most of Tuesday detailing his rocky relationship with his wife and outlined one incident where he found a conversation between her and a Netflix actor.
“She left her phone, and I saw an Instagram message saying … ‘hello beautiful’ or something like that, and I looked at the name, and I didn’t recognize it," he said. "It looked like a foreign name, so I opened her phone, I opened it and he’s verified.”
Abulaban said his wife had sent photos to the actor, whom he didn’t name but couldn’t open them.
He also admitted he had messages on his Instagram from women who sent him explicit images, which he stored in a secret app on his phone disguised as a calculator.
The TikTok star further admitted to attempting to engage in sexual activity with a neighbor while under the influence of cocaine but stopped due to being too high. He said this left him embarrassed.
His defense team is arguing that his cocaine addiction and undiagnosed bipolar disorder played significant roles in the shootings, refuting the prosecution's claim that the murders were premeditated.
The trial is set to continue Wednesday.
