Joran Van Der Sloot Sentenced to 28 Years for Stephany Flores Murder

Joran van der Sloot, the Dutchman suspected in Natalee Holloway's disappearance, was sentenced to 28 years in prison Friday for the 2010 murder a Peruvian woman.

Van der Sloot had pleaded guilty for killing and robbing 21-year-old Stephany Flores on Tuesday. During the sentencing, he told a three-judge panel in Lima that he was truly sorry for the murder and wanted from the first moment to confess sincerely to the brutal crime as he sweated profusely and wiped away tears. He was also ordered to pay $74,000 to the Flores family, Reuters reported.

His lawyers argued that van der Sloot, 24, was driven to kill the woman under the pressure and extreme psychological trauma he suffered as a suspect in the Holloway case.

Flores was killed five years to the day after Holloway, then 18, went missing on a high school graduation trip in Aruba on May 30, 2005. Holloway was last seen leaving a nightclub with van der Sloot on the Caribbean island. He was arrested in the case but never charged.

Investigators never found Holloway's body, but she was officially declared dead by an Alabama court earlier this week. Her father, Dave, had petitioned the court to declare his daughter legally dead. We've been dealing with her death for the last six and a half years, he said after Thursday's court hearing.

Van der Sloot long ago confessed to killing Flores in a rage after she looked through his laptop and saw that he was a suspect in Holloway's disappearance, according to authorities.

His lawyers argued, however, that van der Sloot killed Flores to rob her of the $10,000 she won at the casino where they met.

The Dutch citizen was also indicted in June 2010 for trying to extort $250,000 from Beth Holloway in exchange for the location of her daughter's remains. Van der Sloot's claims were reportedly bogus and he allegedly used the money to travel to Peru, where he met Flores.