Jodi Arias ordered to pay $30,000 to ex-boyfriend’s family

PHOENIX — An Arizona judge on Monday ordered convicted murderer Jodi Arias to pay about $30,000 to the family of the ex-boyfriend she shot and stabbed to death in 2008, court officials said.

Judge Sherry Stephens granted the amount to help cover expenses incurred by five of victim Travis Alexander’s siblings, making the ruling during a restitution hearing in Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix.

Arias, 34, waived her right to appear at the hearing. She was sentenced in April to life in prison without the possibility of parole for the murder of Alexander, who was found slumped in a shower at his Phoenix-area home.

The former waitress from California, who was convicted in May 2013, was sentenced by Stephens after two separate juries deadlocked on whether she should be put to death for the crime.

Members of the victim’s family were also absent from court for the hearing. An attorney for the Alexander family did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Arias is being held at a state prison west of Phoenix following her sentencing, which concluded a trial that gripped the public with its gruesome and sex-laced testimony.

She was found guilty of stabbing her 30-year-old former lover nearly 30 times, slitting his throat almost from ear to ear and shooting him in the face.

Arias said she acted in self-defense and had been fighting for her life. Prosecutors said she killed him in a jealous rage.

She has appealed her conviction, court records show.