Judge orders Jodi Arias to pay $32,000 to victim's family

A Maricopa County Superior Court judge on Monday ordered convicted murderer Jodi Arias to pay more than $32,000 in restitution to the siblings of Travis Alexander, the man she killed.

Arias, 34, who was sentenced to life in prison in April, did not attend the hearing.

According to Arias' defense attorney, Jennifer Willmott, the restitution amount was about one-third of what the family requested as compensation for travel and lodging and other expenses related to Arias' two trials.

Willmott said that she went through the receipts submitted by the family to arrive at the amounts awarded. She also requested the amount of money that the family had received in donations from trial followers to offset their expenses. They declined to reveal the amount.

Prosecutor Juan Martinez said that the Alexander family was traumatized and had no interest in returning to Arizona for the restitution proceedings, so Judge Sherry Stephens awarded the amounts offered by the defense team: $15,530.73 to sister Samantha Alexander; $10,754.99 to sister Tanisha Sorenson; $4,232.11 to sister Hilary Wilcox; and $1,372 and $225.60 to brothers Stephen and Dennis Alexander, respectively.

If and how Arias can actually pay those amounts remains to be seen.

Arias and Alexander were on-again-off-again lovers caught in an obsessive relationship that culminated in murder. Alexander was found dead in the shower of his Mesa home in June 2008. He had been stabbed nearly 30 times, shot once in the head, and his throat was slit. Arias was quickly identified when police extracted photos from a camera found at the crime scene showing the two lovers and a photo of Alexander lying bleeding on the floor.

Arias was convicted of first-degree murder in 2013 after a salacious, circus-like trial that made celebrities of Arias and the attorneys on both sides of the aisle. But the original jury was not able to agree on whether to sentence her to life or death.

A second jury was seated in October 2014 to decide the sentence. It also reached impasse, with a single juror refusing to sentence Arias to death. Under state statute, Stephens then had no choice but to sentence Arias to life in prison. She opted for natural life rather than life with possibility of release after 25 years.