Joran van der Sloot has been granted an extension on pretrial deadlines, including whether or not he will plead guilty or move forward through the court process.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Gray Borden on Tuesday granted the request, the second extension successfully sought by van der Sloot.

“Given the defendant’s need to adequately prepare his defense and to make an informed decision on whether to enter a guilty plea or proceed to trial, the court finds that the ends of justice served by extending the pretrial deadlines and granting a continuance outweigh the best interest of the public and the defendant in a speedy trial,’’ Borden wrote in his order.

Although van der Sloot, now 35, has long been suspected in the disappearance and death of the Mountain Brook High School graduate Natalee Holloway while she was visiting Aruba in 2005, he has never been charged in connection to her death.

However, federal authorities in Alabama contend that in 2010 van der Sloot exploited the fear of Holloway’s mother, Beth, that she would never find her daughter’s body or know what happened to her unless she paid him $250,000.

A federal grand jury in Birmingham indicted van der Sloot on June 30, 2010, on charges of wire fraud and extortion.

Van der Sloot and his attorney asked for a 45-day extension noting that prosecutors did not object.

Borden extended the pretrial motions deadline to Nov. 13. A trial date has not yet been set.

Van der Sloot remains held in the Shelby County Jail.

Van der Sloot on June 8 was extradited from Peru, where he is serving 28 years for the 2010 murder of college student Stephany Flores, to Alabama. The following day, he made his initial appearance in court and pleaded not guilty to the wire fraud and extortion charges.

The case is being prosecuted by Lloyd Peeples, chief of the U.S. Attorney’s Criminal Division, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Catherine Crosby.

Prosecutors contend that van der Sloot told Holloway for an initial payment of $25,000, he would take the Holloway’s representative to the location of Natalee’s body. Once the body was recovered and confirmed to be Natalee, he said, he would then collect the remaining $225,000.

The affidavit said Natalee Holloway died after Joran van der Sloot threw her to the ground when she attempted to stop him from leaving her.

The affidavit also says that his late father, Paulus van der Sloot, then helped him dispose of her body.

Van der Sloot told a representative for Beth Holloway that his father buried her remains in the gravel under the foundation of the single-story house.

He later admitted to the representative that he lied about the location of Natalee’s remains