Stanley sentenced in murder of wife
Dec. 2—JEFFERSON — Jeffrey Stanley, 32, pleaded guilty to four charges related to the murder of his estranged wife in 2018, and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison by Ashtabula County Common Pleas Judge Thomas Harris on Thursday afternoon.
Stanley, a former Saybrook Township resident, was accused of killing Rand Hilal Al Dulaimi and disposing of her body in July 2018.
He pleaded guilty to murder, felonious assault, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse coming from a stipulated plea that was agreed to by the Ashtabula County Prosecutor's Office and Stanley.
Stanley was originally indicted on two other charges, a second count of murder and misdemeanor domestic violence. Both those charges were dropped in the plea agreement.
Stanley agreed to the plea agreement and waived his rights, including the opportunity to have a trial and appeal any potential conviction.
"I waive all rights and plead guilty," he said during the hearing.
Harris asked if all his rights had been explained by his attorney. Stanley said he was made aware of his rights.
Harris sentenced Stanley to 15 years to life on the merged murder and assault charges. Stanley was sentenced to 36 months on the tampering with evidence charge and 12 months on the gross abuse of a corpse charge. All are to be served concurrently.
The charges are also to be served concurrently with an 11-year federal sentence Stanley received on child pornography charges, Harris said.
Al Dulaimi was reported missing by friends, and Stanley, on July 9 and 10 of 2018, according to court testimony. During the course of the investigation, Stanley became a suspect and was arrested on a probation violation and has been in custody ever since.
Stanley's attorney, Malcolm S. Douglas, and Ashtabula County Assistant Prosecutor Dawn Cantalamessa agreed that Stanley should be credited with 1,393 days served, per Ohio law.
Al Dulaimi's sister, Rula, read a statement on behalf of her family. The family is originally from Iraq and the sisters had been living in Turkey.
Rula Al Dulaimi said she knew "something had happened" on July 9, 2018 when her sister did not answer the phone.
"Jeff, you really damaged our family. ... You really damaged yourself," she said.
Prior to her statement she said the family agreed to the plea agreement.
Rula Al Dulaimi said she remembered when Stanley had told her he would never hurt her sister.
"I don't know what happened. I don't know why you did that," she said.
The Ashtabula County Coroner's Office ruled Rand Hilal Al Dulaimi's death a homicide Sept. 13, 2018.
She came to the United States from Turkey after marrying Stanley and giving birth to their son, and worked at Geneva Village Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitation.
She also was a biotechnology major and honor student at Kent State University Ashtabula.
After the murder, Ashtabula County Children Services took custody of her 2-year-old son and a family has since adopted him.
Prosecutors have declined to comment on a potential motive for the murder, but, according to the criminal complaint, Stanley was exchanging messages with another person and received images and videos of child pornography on his cell phone.
An unidentified woman contacted an Ashtabula County Sheriff's detective about the child pornography in October 2016 and again in February 2017 about a conversation between Stanley and another person in which they discussed trafficking a 3-year-old girl for sex, according to the complaint.
In March 2017, the woman gave detectives Stanley's phone.
Detectives turned the phone over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and on July 30 — less than a week after Al Dulaimi's body was found — the FBI got a search warrant for the phone and found 22 image files and six video files of child pornography.
