Iowa City mother sentenced to prison for helping son flee country

IOWA CITY — A judge on Thursday sentenced an Iowa City woman to prison for helping her son flee the country to avoid being prosecuted for robbing and attempting to kill a woman on the University of Iowa campus in 2022.

Sixth Judicial Associate District Judge Jason Burns sentenced Lima Khairi Mohammad Younes, 45, to five years in prison.

She was convicted by a Johnson County jury last month on one felony charge of escape from custody, for aiding and abetting her son, Ali Younes, 20, to intentionally escape the GPS-monitored house arrest he was under as he awaited trial.

She asked for a deferred judgment and probation, but the judge sentenced her to prison.

Ali Younes cut off his ankle monitor and fled to Jordan on May 6, according to authorities.

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According to trial testimony, Lima Younes helped mislead police about the whereabouts of her son, who is charged with attempted murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree theft.

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Her husband, Alfred Ali Mohammad Younes, 49, pleaded last week to the same charge and faces five years in prison. He is to be sentenced Oct. 26. He plans to ask a judge for a deferred judgment, giving him probation and the chance to have his record expunged if he has no violations while on probation.

Ali Younes was accused of strangling a woman on the UI campus until she lost consciousness and then stealing her earrings, valued at $20,000, in April 2022. If convicted, he faced up to 60 years in prison.

UI police officers and others testified during the trial that Lima Younes and her husband sold their vehicle and rented a van to take their son to Chicago, so he could take an international flight to Jordan with his grandmother.

Police said they couldn’t track Ali and Alfred Younes’ phones because they were turned off, and Lima Younes had left her phone at their home in Sutherland in northwest Iowa.

UI Detective Ian Mallory testified about tracking a GMC Arcadia that was missing from the Younes’ home after the ankle monitor was cut off. He used the vehicle’s OnStar device to find it at a dealership in Omaha, Neb.

The dealer told Mallory that Lima and Alfred Younes had sold him the Arcadia for $42,000. They received a check for about $21,000 because they still owed half the loan from buying the vehicle in 2022.

The couple did not buy another vehicle and had arrived at the dealership in a white Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the dealer said. Police later found the couple had rented the minivan May 4.

Lima Younes also misled investigators and Ali’s probation officer by saying her son was at home in Sutherland and that she and her husband were returning from Davenport.

Investigators testified they obtained surveillance videos of Ali Younes and his grandmother in an O’Hare airport parking lot for international travelers and also had records of them buying tickets for the flight to Jordan.

According to court documents, Lima Younes was arrested May 9 by UI police on a warrant with assistance from the Sioux County Sheriff’s Office.

Alfred Younes was arrested May 9 on a warrant by Omaha Police Department’s Fugitive Apprehension Unit and the Omaha Airport Authority while he was attempting to board a flight in Omaha, according to court documents. He was headed to Amman, Jordan. He was extradited to Johnson County in July.

Ali Younes remains a fugitive and cannot be extradited from Jordan because the United States doesn’t have an extradition treaty with that country, according to police.

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