After just two days of deliberations, a Santa Clara County jury found a San Jose software engineer guilty of murdering an attorney who was representing his dead wife's family in a $15 million wrongful death lawsuit she had filed against him in 2008.
Jason Cai, 53, found guilty of first degree murder, is now scheduled to be sentenced on May 24 to a maximum of mandatory life sentence without parole.
After the verdict was read, some of the jury applauded Supervising Deputy District Attorney Brian Welch and an investigator for their work.
This is the second time Cai has been on trial for the 2008 murder of Xia Zhao, a 32-year-old wife and mother, who was shot in the parking lot of her Hamilton Avenue office at close range.
"I feel justice has been done for Xia Zhao and her family," Welch said through a spokesman.
Cai was on trial in 2010 on the same charge, but that jury deadlocked 11-1. Some of those jurors attended Wednesday's verdict.
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Cai was also tried in 2006 for the 2003 drowning of his wife, Ying Deng, who was found dead in the pool of their Cupertino home.
Zhao had been hired by Deng's family after they filed a $15 million wrongful death suit against them.
Cai had taken out $250,000 in life insurance on her not long before she was found in the pool, prosecutors said, money he was prevented from collecting because of the family's pending lawsuit.
Zhao had filed a restraining order against Cai before she was killed on grounds that he had stalked and threatened her, in an effort to get her to drop the suit, prosecutors said.
Still, Cai was never convicted for the death of his wife.
During this trial, Cai was represented by renowned San Francisco attorney Tona Serra. Cai had taken the stand and testified "No" when Serra asked him if he had killed Zhao.
District Attorney Jeff Rosen was a homicide prosecutor six years ago against Cai for his wife's murder. On Wednesday, Rosen said: "This time, Mr. Cai did not escape justice."
