FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) - A South Florida man has been sentenced to life in prison for strangling his estranged wife's friend.
The Sun Sentinel reports that Tony Villegas was sentenced Monday after a Broward County jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.
Prosecutors say Villegas killed Melissa Britt Lewis with his bare hands in March 2008 after waiting for her at her home. Villegas and his wife, Debra Coffey, had been separated for about a year, and authorities say Villegas became jealous of how close Coffey was to his wife and children.
Lewis and Coffey both worked for the Rothstein Rosenfeldt Adler law firm, where managing partner Scott Rothstein was later convicted of running a $1.6 billion Ponzi scheme. Coffey served several years in federal prison for the scheme, but Lewis was never implicated.
