Associated Press
The man convicted of killing Kristin Smart, who vanished from a California college campus more than 25 years ago, was sentenced Friday to 25 years to life in prison.
Paul Flores is “a cancer to society,” Monterey County Superior Court Judge Jennifer O’Keefe said. Flores also must register as a sex offender.
Before sentencing, the judge rejected defense motions to toss out Flores’ conviction, acquit him and order a new trial.
Smart, 19, disappeared from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo on the state’s scenic central coast over Memorial Day weekend in 1996.
Her remains have never been found, but she was declared legally dead in 2002.
Prosecutors maintained that Flores, now 46, killed Smart during an attempted rape on May 25, 1996, in his dorm room at the university, where both were first-year students. He was the last person seen with Smart as he walked her home from an off-campus party.
Flores, who is from San Pedro, was arrested in 2021 along with his father, who was accused of helping to hide Smart’s body.
The trial was held in Salinas, in Monterey County, about 110 miles north of San Luis Obispo, after the defense argued that the case’s notoriety prevented Flores and his father from receiving a fair trial in their own county.
At the sentencing, prosecutor Chris Peuvrelle asked the judge for the maximum sentence, called Flores a “true psychopath” and said he should never be released from prison.
Smart’s father, siblings and other friends and relatives spoke at the hearing about the impact of her death on the family.
Related story: Father says ‘no joy’ in Kristin Smart murder conviction
A jury found Flores guilty of first-degree murder in October. A separate jury acquitted Ruben Flores, 81, of being an accessory.
Related story: San Pedro man found guilty in 1996 murder of Kristin Smart; his father acquitted
At Paul Flores’ trial, defense attorney Robert Sanger tried to pin the killing on…
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