Joran van der Sloot Pleads Guilty to Extorting Natalee Holloway's Mother

Natalee Holloway went missing in 2005 on a trip to Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation

Nearly two decades after Natalee Holloway’s disappearance, the man long-connected to the high schooler’s unsolved case went in front of a court in her home state of Alabama and pleaded guilty – to extortion and wire fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice announced.

Joran van der Sloot – now 36, and who is in the midst of serving a 28-year murder sentence in Peru after confessing to the killing of another student, Stephany Flores Ramírez – was extradited to Alabama in June, where he faced one count of extortion and one count of wire fraud in connection to Natalee’s case.

This morning, in a federal courtroom in Birmingham, van der Sloot pleaded guilty to both charges, admitting to extorting money from Beth Holloway, Natalee's grieving mother who has traveled multiple times to Aruba trying to find out what really happened to her only child who was celebrating her 2005 graduation when she went missing.

Related: Joran van der Sloot, Suspect in Natalee Holloway Case, Arrives in U.S. to Face Charges

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The extortion case stems from a 2010 grand jury indictment obtained by PEOPLE in which prosecutors claimed van der Sloot had extorted about $25,000 from Beth in exchange for “the location of Natalee Holloway’s remains and the circumstances of her death” and had tried to get another $225,000 “upon positive identification of the remains,"– but he never actually led Beth to Natalee’s body.

Related: Natalee Holloway's Mom Returns to Aruba 15 Years After Daughter's Still-Unsolved Disappearance

Natalee was last seen leaving a bar with van der Sloot during a high school graduation trip to Aruba on May 30, 2005. Van der Sloot, then 17, was arrested several times in connection to the 18-year-old’s disappearance but never charged. Natalee was legally declared dead in 2012, but her body was never found.

Related: Inside Natalee Holloway's Final Hours Before She Vanished: 'I Remember Seeing Her in a White Car Driving Away'

Then, exactly five years to the day of Natalee’s disappearance, van der Sloot would later admit to beating, choking and smothering 21-year-old Stephany to death in his hotel room in Lima. He reportedly told investigators that Stephany had seen an online message accusing him of Natalee’s disappearance, leading to the violent struggle.

Peru granted the “temporary surrender” of van der Sloot to stand trial in Alabama before returning to Peru to finish his sentence, U.S. federal prosecutors said in a statement this summer. Van der Sloot's sentence in the U.S. will run concurrently to his sentence in Peru, but if he is released from prison in Peru early, he would then serve the remainder of his 20-year sentence in the U.S., AL.com reports.

Van der Sloot will be in prison until 2043, WBRC reports. He also must pay Beth Holloway $250,100 in restitution. He also must pay Beth Holloway $250,100 in restitution.

Attorneys for van der Sloot did not immediately respond to PEOPLE's request for comment.

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