After 10 years and two mistrials, a 46-year-old man has been convicted in the killing and dismemberment of his wife’s ex-lover.

Anthony Newton was found guilty Friday on six counts, including first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit murder, and first-degree kidnapping, in the slaying of Ulyses Cesar Molina.

In November 2024, a mistrial was declared after a witness told jurors that Newton had been in prison, court records show. A year ago, Newton went to trial, and the jury was unable to reach a verdict.

Although Newton had previously faced the death penalty, his defense attorneys, Joshua Tomsheck and Thomas Ericsson, and prosecutor Pamela Weckerly, agreed to no longer consider the case for capital punishment, court records show.

Tomsheck said Newton faces 20 to 50 years in prison, life with parole, or life without parole when he is sentenced in March.

Molina’s body was found burned and dismembered in a vacant lot on Dec. 28, 2016. In 2018, while Newton had been in custody awaiting trial, a Henderson woman found a human hand in her mailbox that police determined to be Molina’s.

Weckerly previously said that investigators could not answer how that hand ended up in the woman’s mailbox, according to court transcripts. Police never found Molina’s head.

“But what you will know and what will be abundantly clear is that the person that killed Cesar Molina was Anthony Newton,” Weckerly said during Newton’s second trial.

Newton — with the help of his brother-in-law, George Malaperdas, and another woman, Kelsea Wray Glass, who had been romantically involved with both Newton and the victim — “set up Molina” on Christmas, calling him to an apartment where Newton was waiting, prosecutors said.

Malaperdas helped Newton tie Molina up, and Newton stepped on Molina’s neck until he died. During the attack, they accused Molina of having sex with Newton’s wife, authorities said. Afterward, the two men took the body to another location, where they dismembered Molina before leaving his torso and legs in a suitcase in the desert.

Both Malaperdas and Glass pleaded guilty in the case, but the guilty pleas were filed under seal, court records show. Prosecutors said in documents filed before Newton’s trial started that Malaperdas and Glass would be called as witnesses.

They both have sentencing hearings later this month, according to court records.

Contact Akiya Dillon at adillon@reviewjournal.com.

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