A man once famous on TikTok for his Scarface impersonations has learned his sentence after being found guilty in May of killing his wife and her friend in San Diego in 2021.
A California judge sentenced Ali Abulaban, 32, to two consecutive life terms without parole for the first-degree murders of Ana Abulaban, 28, and her friend Rayburn Barron, 29, plus an additional 50 years in prison on weapons enhancement charges.
Throughout the trial, Abulaban never denied killing his ex-wife and Barron, who were huddled together on a couch in their San Diego apartment when they were shot.
Judge Jeffrey Fraser said Abulaban had committed “cold-blooded and remorseless murder” and added that his actions were “chilling” and extremely selfish.
“The bottom line is that he will die in prison,” Fraser told the court. “He will never be a free man. That’s where he will take his last breath.”
Ali Abulaban looks offended at Judge Jeffrey Fraser after being told he will “die in prison”
Abulaban claimed he was suffering from a “drug-induced psychosis” when he broke in and killed Ana, pictured, and her friend.
The judge’s pronouncement brought cheers and applause to the entire courtroom, almost identical to the reaction of friends and family when Abulaban was found guilty in May.
Frustrated, Abulaban imitated the crowd by clapping and muttering an insult.
His strange behaviour didn’t end there, as he decided to start a shouting match with Ana’s distraught sister while she was giving her victim impact statement. NBC San Diego reported.
—Ali, if I had known what my sister had been through with all that abuse, if I had known, if I had known —he screamed—, I would have flown again to see her and to take her and Amira away from you.
Amira is the couple’s daughter, who was just five years old when Abulaban committed the murders.
“You promised my mother that you would take good care of them, like my parents did with Ana Marie and Amira in the Philippines,” she said. “But I had no idea that my sister’s life would be miserable living with you. You treated my sister like she didn’t matter, but she did.”
Pictured: Ana’s sister yelled at Abulaban before she began her victim impact statement.
Abulaban shouted back, while his defense attorney tried to calm him down.
The family of Rayburn Barron, pictured, also gave victim impact statements.
Barron’s family also took the stand to tell the court what he meant to them. They described him as a caring person and a family man who went out of his way to help others.
“We are often told that we are a very strong family for having survived this tragedy,” said Barron’s sister, Lizbeth Baron. “But the reality is that this has been the hardest thing we have ever been through and many of us are devastated. The pain and trauma of losing our brother the way we did is so painful that it is difficult for us to live a normal, healthy life.”
When it was his turn to address the victims, Abulaban pleaded with the judge and expressed his regret for what he admitted to having done.
He apologized to Ana’s family and claimed he was in a “drug-induced psychosis” when he broke into her high-rise building on October 21, 2021.
“At the time, my reaction was an impulsive, involuntary reaction against my judgment to discover that Ray was having a romantic relationship with my wife,” he said. “I’m being sent to prison forever, which makes me feel like I’m being sent to hell, and I don’t think that’s fair.”
The judge didn’t buy his “heat of passion” explanation, even citing what a good actor he was thanks to his Tony Montana impersonation videos.
Judge Jeffrey Fraser, pictured, commented on Abulaban’s Scarface videos, saying: “Every tear he has shed in this courtroom has been for himself.”
‘He fired a shot within seconds of entering the apartment, clearly showing an intention to kill, not a fit of passion, but a deliberate, premeditated and cold-blooded murder.
“He’s a very talented actor. When I watched the Scarface videos, I felt that if he committed those crimes, he would become the Scarface character,” the judge said. “All the tears he shed in this courtroom were for himself.”
Abulaban, who has a history of domestic violence, was allegedly kicked out of his apartment with Ana in the Spire San Diego luxury apartment complex.
He believed his wife was cheating on him with Barron, and San Diego Deputy District Attorney Taren Brast said the couple had already been separated “for quite some time” before that.
After Ana told him to move out, prosecutors said he secretly made a copy of the apartment key so he could install a listening device on his five-year-old daughter’s tablet.
Prosecutors believe he lost his mind from there when he heard his ex-wife and another man talking.
Security camera video showed him running out of the elevator on the 35th floor toward the apartment.
Brast said Abulaban shot Barron three times at close range — in the neck, cheek and back of the head — before turning the gun on his wife, shooting her once in the forehead.
She then called her mother to confess what had happened and also told her daughter that she had “hurt mommy.”
Ana used to appear regularly in Abulaban’s comedy videos on TikTok, where her now-deleted account once had more than 980,000 followers.
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