Quantcast

Jamaica man guilty in February ‘03 slay

By Adam Pincus

Tony Sexton, 37, was found guilty of murder and witness tampering after he represented himself at a 2-1/2-week jury trial for the beating death of Maria Rogers in her co-operative at 108-17 160th St. in Jamaica, where he lived as well with his fiancee Rosanna Rogers, prosecutors said.Sexton, who was being held without bail, faces up to 27 years to life in prison, the district attorney said.”The defendant has now been held accountable for the vicious and brutal murder of his fiancee's mother,” District Attorney Richard Brown said. “I only hope that those affected by this tragedy can find some degree of comfort in today's conviction.”Prosecutors said that Sexton was engaged to Rogers' daughter Rosanna, whom he had met about seven months before, and he moved into the home jointly owned by the pair.The victim did not approve of his daughter's relationship with Sexton, prosecutors said. In opening statements at the start of the trial, prosecutors told the jury that Sexton did not get along with his girlfriend's mother.While his fiancee was out of town on a vacation trip to Florida, Sexton became enraged with her mother and beat her in the head with a blunt object, prosecutors said.He attempted to clean the blood that had soaked into the rug in the living room where the attack occurred with bleach, they said.He took the body wrapped in a flower print slip cover from the living room furniture and stuffed it into a trash bag, prosecutors said.The following night he placed the bag with its gruesome contents in the woman's car, which he drove several blocks away and abandoned, they said.After he made a written confession to investigators, police found the body eight days after the killing, they said.Sexton was expected to be sentenced Feb. 27 by Supreme Court Justice Robert Hanophy who presided over the trial, the DA said.Reach reporter Adam Pincus by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or by phone at 718 229-0300, Ext. 154.