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Former TikTok Star Gets Life Sentence for Double Murder: "He Will Never Be a Free Man"
The judge compared Abulaban's Scarface impressions with why the social media personality killed his estranged wife and her friend "without remorse."
TikTok creator and influencer Ali Abulaban, whose horrific crimes were the subject of Peacock’s TikTok Star Murders, will spend the rest of his life behind bars, so ordered a California judge.
On Friday, September 6, 2024, San Diego man Ali Abulaban, 31, was hit with two consecutive life sentences for the October 21, 2021, shooting deaths of his estranged wife, Ana Abulaban, 28, and the woman’s friend, Rayburn Cardenas Barron, 29, according to NBC affiliate KNSD. The decision comes after Abulaban was found guilty on two counts of first-degree murder after the jury heard proof that he went into their once-shared East Village high-rise and killed the friends as they sat on the couch, convinced that his young daughter’s mother and Barron were romantically involved.
During last week’s emotional hearing, the defendant exhibited several profanity-laced outbursts, including one that led to a shouting match between him and the victim’s sister, Hermae Sartin, as she read from an impact statement.
Judge Jeffrey Fraser Admonishes Abulaban
Spectators erupted in applause when San Diego Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Fraser had the following to say:
“He’s a very selfish person, as I think the jury saw,” he said. “The bottom line here is he will die in prison. He will never be a free man. He will take his last breath there.”
Pleading his case in court, Ali Abulaban cited his “suffering from an untreated, severe mental illness” and a “crippling” addiction to cocaine as what sparked a “drug-induced psychosis” that made him carry out the double homicide in a fit of jealous rage.
“Personally, I believe everyone should have the ability to parole because everyone has the ability to change,” Abulaban said.
Judge Fraser denied the defense’s stance that Ali Abulaban killed in “the heat of passion,” as pointed out by how the embittered ex installed spyware on his daughter’s iPad to monitor the victim’s daily ins and outs, prosecutors previously stated. Jurors also heard that Ali Abulaban duplicated apartment keys to enter the luxury apartment without permission, and how he began audio recording just before executing what Judge Fraser called a “willful, deliberate, premeditated, cold-blooded murder,” per the NBC affiliate.
Who was Ali Abulaban?
Ali Abulaban was born in Staten Island and served in the U.S. Air Force, his mother said during the murder trial, according to Fox San Diego affiliate KSWB-TV. He was stationed in Japan when meeting Ana Abulaban of the Philippines. After being discharged from the military — allegedly for a physical altercation between him and one of Ana Abulaban’s friends, as seen in TikTok Star Murders — the couple moved close to Ali Abulaban’s family in Bristow, Virginia, after learning they were expecting a child.
They married in 2017.
But Ali Abulaban’s rise to prominence came the following year when he began making TikTok videos under the name “JinnKid,” recording impersonations that caught the attention of millions. Some of his most-watched videos featured his impressions of Tony Montana from the 1983 film Scarface, earning him nearly one million followers.
The Abulabans moved to San Diego, but as the husband’s online presence and desire for fame grew, so did Ana Abulaban’s isolation and Ali Abulaban’s cocaine addiction, much of which the TikTok personality shared on social media.
Even Judge Fraser touched on Abulaban’s online success at Friday morning’s hearing, according to KNSD.
“He is a very talented actor,” said the judge. “When I saw the Scarface videos, it’s as if when he committed these crimes, he became that persona of Scarface, of just the cold-blooded killing without remorse.”
He said that any of Ali Abulaban’s tears shed through the trial “have been for himself.”
Learn more about the case in TikTok Star Murders, now available to stream on Peacock.
