A serial rapist who lured seven women to his Missouri apartment using dating apps — including Muslim dating sites — just got slapped with 291 years in prison, and somehow this monster still has the audacity to claim he's innocent. St. Louis County Circuit Judge Ellen Ribaudo handed down the sentence on Tuesday, June 16, ensuring that Yahya Maly, 30, will never breathe free air again.
Two hundred and ninety-one years. He won't be eligible for parole until he's served 270 of them. So if you're doing the math at home, that puts his earliest release date somewhere around the year 2296. I hear the flying cars are nice that time of year.
Maly, an immigrant from Finland who became a naturalized U.S. citizen, was found guilty in April on 17 of 21 counts — including four counts of first-degree rape or attempted rape, eight counts of second-degree rape, and five counts of first-degree sodomy or attempted sodomy. He was acquitted on two counts of kidnapping and two counts of assault. The crimes were committed against seven women between February 2023 and February 2025 in his apartment in Ballwin, Missouri.
Here's how this predator operated. He used dating apps — including Muslim dating sites — to find his victims, going by the alias "John" to hide his real identity. He'd lure women to his apartment and then assault them. One victim testified that Maly told her she was his wife and needed to perform her "wifely duties" or risk going to hell. That's not a cultural misunderstanding. That's a predator weaponizing religion to terrorize women.
The jury actually recommended 319 years, but Judge Ribaudo structured the sentence as nine life sentences on each rape and attempted rape count running consecutively, plus 49 combined years on the remaining guilty counts, with three of those running consecutively, for the 291-year total.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Melissa Price Smith didn't mince words after the sentencing. "He is a danger to the community and it's because of these women he is off the streets," she said. She also praised the victims' courage: "It's hard for a victim to come forward and these women came forward anyway."
And those women absolutely deserve credit. All seven testified at trial. One victim described the lasting damage: "It's caused PTSD; me going to counseling; me taking medication." Another nearly didn't show up at all. "I was actually thinking about not coming into it," she said. "I knew I had to be brave." Two of the seven attended the sentencing in person to watch this animal get what he deserved.
But here's the part that'll make your blood boil. Maly expressed zero remorse. None. His defense attorney Mark Hammer issued a statement saying Maly "maintains a firm belief in his innocence and intends to appeal his conviction." During pre-trial proceedings, Maly himself called the case "Muslim persecution" and deemed it "completely unacceptable." He was offered a plea deal of just 26 years — 26! — and he turned it down because he genuinely believes he did nothing wrong.
Maly was a chiropractic student at Logan University in the St. Louis area at the time of his arrest. He'd previously attended Virginia Commonwealth University and J. Sargeant Reynolds Community College in Virginia. We let this guy into the country, educated him at our institutions, and he repaid the favor by becoming a serial predator who hunted women like prey on dating apps.
One of the victims said something after the trial that should haunt every tech executive in Silicon Valley: she wished dating sites would "start doing background checks on people." She's not wrong. These platforms are printing money while predators use them as hunting grounds.
This case is a reminder that our immigration system welcomed a man who would go on to commit unspeakable crimes against seven women over a two-year period. At least the justice system got this one right. 291 years. No early release. No second chances.
Good riddance.