Abraham Feinbloom sentenced to 13 years to life for torturing, killing T’Neya Tovar as her family confronts him in court

EL CENTRO, Calif. (KESQ) - Abraham Feinbloom was sentenced Monday to 13 years to life in state prison for torturing and killing 17-year-old T'Neya Tovar, after her mother, father and sister stood in an Imperial County courtroom and told him what he took from them.

The judge followed the plea deal Feinbloom signed Sept. 28, seven years to life for torture and a consecutive six years for voluntary manslaughter. The 51-year-old gets credit for 294 days already served and must pay a $10,000 restitution fine. The judge found he had met the conditions of the deal, which required him to lead investigators to T'Neya's remains and called for the murder charge to be dismissed at sentencing.

Charro Tovar, T'Neya's mother, spoke for close to half an hour. She told the court about going to Feinbloom's boarded-up house looking for her daughter and not being able to get inside, and about the photograph of a leg she had to recognize as her child's.

"Thirteen years is not enough to me," she said, and asked for the maximum the law allows. "You chose my daughter, and because you chose my daughter, you got me too," she told him.

She added, "I'm the mother who wouldn't stop, and I'm still not going away."

Crystal Behn read statements from T'Neya's sisters.

"You did not disappear her voice," one said. "You gave her family a reason to speak even louder."

Her father, Josh Carter, told the court it was "a blessing" the outcome was what it was, and that the man who killed their daughter "was caught."

When the judge asked Feinbloom if he had anything to say, he did not apologize. Both parents said he never looked at them.

"Cowards don't look people in the face," Carter said outside the courthouse.

The judge said he had never seen a case "so exhaustively investigated and prepared for trial" and said the harshness of Feinbloom's conduct was indescribable. He said motions had been filed before trial to bring in prior allegations of misconduct involving other children, some never successfully prosecuted, and invited prosecutors to pursue them if they can. The plea does not prevent it, he said.

Outside court, District Attorney George Marquez said the torture charge was how prosecutors got to a life sentence.

"The torture charge gives us the seven to life, and the manslaughter gives us the six years," he said. "Sometimes when we're reaching disposition on cases, we come up with charges that might be somehow connected, but it reaches the end result, which is what we wanted."

He said prosecutors never learned exactly how T'Neya was killed, which would have made first-degree murder "problematic" to prove, and put his maximum exposure at trial at "15 or 16 years." Feinbloom did not have to explain how she died, only lead investigators to her remains.

"He's 51 years old," Marquez said. "The chances are he's probably going to die in prison."

Defense attorney Melanie Roe called that "absolutely inconsistent with the law." She said parole in California is "the rule, not the exception," and she expects the board to recommend Feinbloom's release when he is eligible.

Roe said it was "a no-body case from the beginning," with no autopsy report until five days before the preliminary hearing, and that there are no past cases against him. The 2018 kidnapping charge was dismissed because the accuser had died, she said, and other allegations were never filed. She said reporters should ask the district attorney why.

Charro Tovar said she was told Monday the majority of her daughter's remains have been recovered, but not all.

"We can't get murder, but we got torture," she said. "He tortured her to death. There's no difference in my eyes."

She said she will be at every parole hearing, and she still does not believe deputies took her reports seriously in December, when she went to the house with deputies four times and no one went inside.

T'Neya, of Hemet, called her mother Dec. 1, 2025, and said she was on her way to Palm Springs. She was reported missing that day. An FBI agent later testified a friend dropped her off at Feinbloom's home on Harlequin Court in Salton City.

On Dec. 21, deputies found a human leg less than a mile away. DNA matched it to T'Neya on Feb. 6, the same day FBI agents searched the house. A week later, Feinbloom jumped a fence as a SWAT team arrived and was arrested.

He pleaded not guilty to murder and told agents he did not know her. Jury selection was set for Oct. 6. He took the deal eight days before, and a day later investigators recovered a skull and ribcage in a wash off Treadwell Boulevard, according to the District Attorney's Office.