A California woman who lured a Tinder date to a park where her father fatally stabbed him over a false rape allegation has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Rena Lizette Alaniz, 25, of Thousand Palms, was convicted of first-degree murder and the special circumstance of lying in wait in the 2020 killing of 29-year-old Ruben Argentis Mujica.
The sentence was handed down Friday, May 9, by Riverside County Superior Court Judge James Hawkins at the Larson Justice Center in Indio.
According to prosecutors, Alaniz met Mujica on Tinder on August 4, 2020. The two spent time together drinking, smoking marijuana, and eventually had sex — which Mujica believed was consensual.
But the next day, Alaniz texted him with a false accusation that he had raped her. Despite his insistence that their interaction had been consensual, Alaniz escalated the situation by telling her father, 44-year-old Carlos Antonio Ruiz, and her then-boyfriend, 22-year-old Andres Moreno, that she had been assaulted.
Evidence presented at trial revealed that Alaniz had a history of using Tinder to lure men into dangerous situations, often setting them up to be robbed. While Mujica was not robbed, Alaniz’s false accusation turned deadly.
On the night of August 6, 2020, Alaniz arranged to meet Mujica at Century Park in Cathedral City under the pretense of resolving the alleged “misunderstanding.”
Once they arrived, she led Mujica to a gazebo, then texted Ruiz and Moreno to confirm his location. The two men ambushed Mujica, beating him before Ruiz stabbed him 30 times with a folding knife, puncturing his heart, lungs, spleen, and stomach.
Mujica reportedly cried out, “Sorry,” as he was being attacked, seemingly unaware of what was happening. A bystander walking a dog discovered him moments later and called 911. Mujica died an hour later at Desert Regional Medical Center.
Ruiz, a convicted felon with a history of violence, was previously sentenced to 50 years to life after being convicted of first-degree murder. Moreno was acquitted of murder but convicted of assault causing great bodily injury and sentenced to five years in prison.
Alaniz’s life sentence is without the possibility of parole due to the calculated nature of the killing, described by the court as a “deliberate ambush.”
