Lewis was being retried because his first trial ended in a hung jury. At the fresh hearing, his defence called for another mistrial, arguing Lewis's confession was coerced but the judge rejected this.<doc-sep>The man accused of killing jogger Karina Vetrano was found guilty on all charges Monday night. Chanel Lewis, 21, was convicted of murder and sexual abuse and faces up to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Sentencing has been scheduled for April 17. "Jubilation. Justice has been served," the victim's father, Phil Vetrano, said as he exited the courtroom while holding hands with his wife. "He just got a death sentence, he's going to die in jail. We can't be any more pleased, and now we move on." Both sides delivered closing arguments Monday, with the jury getting the case for deliberations that afternoon. A verdict was rendered a few hours later. Lewis' defense team was disappointed with the verdict. "Our client did not receive a fair trial. We will appeal immediately to a court that can afford Mr. Lewis the fair review he has thus far been denied," the Legal Aid Society, which represented Lewis, said in a statement after the verdict. A juror who asked not to be identified told ABC News outside the courtroom he was the only juror who went into deliberations not yet convinced of convicting Lewis. "But," the juror said, "justice was served." The juror, a man in his 30s who works in entertainment, added: "At first, I thought this was going to be about race, then it totally went the opposite direction." Before reaching a verdict, the jury asked to see Lewis' confession video, but after further discussion, this juror and two others were convinced not to watch it and to proceed with the conviction. "I felt that I was getting heat from other jurors to make a decision," he told ABC News. "I thought we were going to continue tomorrow, but after they brought up different points of view I changed my mind." The jurors mostly got along until arguing over the relevance of the sexual assault charges, which the unnamed juror and two others didn't find entirely convincing. "The DA sprinkled the sexual assault stuff, but didn't really talk about it -- it wasn't enough to convince me and two other jurors," he said. "Everyone agreed with the DNA [evidence], others were agreeing on the footage, but some had feelings about the video footage. ... I kept thinking about Steven Avery from 'Making a Murderer.' You know, then you hear about cases of people spending 30 years in jail and they didn't do it? That was in the back of my mind." Vetrano, 30, was killed while jogging alone in Spring Creek Park -- adjacent to Howard Beach, New York -- on Aug. 2, 2016. It was a run she often made with her father. The St. John's University graduate's parents were concerned when she didn't return home at her usual time and called a neighbor who works for the New York Police Department. According to trial testimony, Phil Vetrano led the search and ultimately discovered his daughter's partially clothed body laying in unkempt weeds in the waterfront park. Vetrano was severely beaten, face-down in 8-foot reeds, with her front tooth knocked out, her pants pulled down and her socks wet, said Robert Boyce, NYPD's then-chief of detectives and now an ABC News contributor. Boyce called the brutal killing one of the most notable cases of his career. "My thoughts were ... she was dragged through [a puddle of] water and then dragged off the path into the high reeds," Boyce added. Her phone was found thrown in the reeds about 15 to 20 feet from her body, Boyce said. Police recovered DNA from one unknown person on her cell phone, the back of her neck and her fingernails, he said. Six months into the investigation, the case had turned cold when one of the case detectives, Lt. John Russo, remembered calling the police on a black man who was roaming in the Howard Beach neighborhood three months prior to Karina Vetrano's death, according to trial testimony. The man was later identified as Lewis. Lewis, then 20, agreed to allow police to swab him for DNA inside his East New York home as his mother stood nearby. He was taken into custody a week later on charges of murder and sexual abuse. He has been in jail since his arrest. Lewis, who didn't appear to know Vetrano, allegedly told detectives he "just lost it" and strangled Vetrano after spotting her on the jogging path, according to a statement that prosecutors read aloud during his arraignment. Vetrano "didn’t do anything," Lewis allegedly told police. "I was just mad at the time. I beat her to let my emotions out. I never really meant to hurt her. It just happened." Lewis' first trial, in November 2018, deadlocked a jury after 13 hours and prompted the case judge to declare a mistrial. ABC News' Emily Shapiro contributed to this report.<doc-sep>Mr. Moeller asked the jury to pay close attention to Mr. Lewis’s behavior in the video of his confession, noting that he, though an adult, had asked to speak to his mother and to watch cartoons while in police custody. Mr. Lewis lived with his mother and had graduated from a school for students with learning disabilities. He appeared confused at times during the videotaped interview, and mumbled through some of his responses. One juror, who requested not to be named for fear of harassment, said there were some undecided jurors when deliberations started. He and two other jurors requested to review the videotape of the confession. “You always see cases where the wrong person is put behind bars and then 30 years later their whole life is gone and you find out they’re not guilty,” the juror said. “That was in the back of my mind.” In the end, however, he said he was persuaded by the other jurors that the confession was genuine and that the scientific evidence backed it up. Shortly before the verdict on Monday, the case took an unexpected turn when defense lawyers received an anonymous letter from a person who claimed to be a police officer. That person said that before the police turned their focus toward Mr. Lewis, they had collected DNA samples from at least 360 black men who had previously been in custody in parts of Queens and Brooklyn. The letter also said the police initially thought two white men had killed Ms. Vetrano. Mr. Lewis’s lawyers asked Justice Michael B. Aloise for a hearing to determine if prosecutors had withheld evidence favorable to Mr. Lewis, and for a mistrial. Mr. Leventhal, the prosecutor, argued that the letter was sent by someone “trying to derail this case on the eve of summations.” Justice Aloise denied both of the defense’s requests.<doc-sep>New York City jurors took five hours to convict a 22-year-old man in the killing of a female jogger in Queens, whose 2016 slaying set off a months-long manhunt. Chanel Lewis of Brooklyn was found guilty of killing Karina Vetrano on Aug. 2, 2016. He was convicted on four counts, including murder and sexual abuse. Monday's verdict came more than four months after Lewis' first trial ended in a mistrial when the Queens jury could not come to a unanimous decision. Vetrano, 30, was killed while running in Howard Beach's Spring Creek Park. A professional caterer who also traveled the world and wrote a blog, Vetrano normally ran with her father. But he didn’t accompany her that day. When she didn’t return, her father called 911 to report her missing and a search was organized. The body of Karina Vetrano, 30, was found in a Queens marsh after she went for a run on August 2, 2016. She had been sexually assaulted, the NYPD said. WNBC Hours later, Vetrano’s body was discovered in a marsh near the Belt Parkway bike path. Pings from her cellphone led police to a weedy area where Vetrano was found face down and her hands balled up, clutching the weeds surrounding her. “This was a horrifying case. A vibrant, young woman’s life came to an abrupt and violent end," Queens Chief Assistant District Attorney John Ryan said Monday night in a statement. "Ms. Vetrano’s death was brutal. She was pulled from a park pathway, sexually assaulted, and in her last moments of life she gasped for air as the defendant’s hands tightened around her neck.” Lewis was arrested nearly six months after Vetrano's death, and prosecutors presented evidence of Lewis' DNA found under Vetrano's fingernails. In an interview played for jurors, Lewis told authorities he was in a bad mood that day because his neighbor had been blaring music before he encountered Vetrano jogging on the trail. Lewis allegedly admitted that he “got angry and started hitting [Vetrano]” in the face and mouth, according to the taped interview. Phillip and Catherine Vetrano, parents of Karina Vetrano, arrive to court in New York on March 20, 2019. Chanel Lewis is accused of killing their daughter. Seth Wenig / AP But Lewis' defense lawyers insisted that confession was coerced and that the crime scene was tainted by the victim's father. He had led a search party for his missing daughter and found her body, prompting him to lift up and hug his slain daughter. The defense also said police racially profiled the African-American Lewis — a claim that New York police rejected. On Monday, lawyers for Lewis asked for new hearings based on an anonymous letter that suggested "possible alternate suspects" in the case, reported NBC New York. Prosecutors argued the anonymous letter writer was trying to "derail the trial." The judge denied the defense motion, but the team was submitting other applications to dismiss the case against Lewis. "Multiple legal hearings and two criminal trials, over more than two years, have already exhaustively examined the issues in this anonymous, 11th-hour letter, a missive riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies,” the NYPD said in a statement on Monday, NBC New York reported. Lewis, who is scheduled to be sentenced April 17, faces a maximum of life without the possibility of parole. "It is my hope that as this case draws to a close, it will give the family of the victim some closure and comfort knowing her killer will likely spend the rest of his life behind bars," according to the prosecutor, Ryan. Prior to Lewis' arrest, the search for Vetrano’s killer gained national attention as months went on with no answers. A GoFundMe page set up after Vetrano’s death had raised over $297,000 toward the investigative effort. She worked as a caterer for RV Rooftop at Vetro in Howard Beach, NBC New York reported in 2016. She was a world traveler and aspiring writer, and on her blog, she wrote about her life: “It’s chaotic and unpredictable, but I do believe that on some days, it’s quite beautiful, in all its poetic little tragedies.”<doc-sep>
The man accused of murdering New York City jogger Karina Vetrano was found guilty on all counts Monday night at his retrial. Chanel Lewis was found guilty of murder and sexual abuse. Lewis, 22, was accused of sexually assaulting and murdering the 30-year-old jogger in August 2016 while in the New York City borough of Queens. He was arrested in February 2017 and charged with second-degree murder — but his first trial ended in a hung jury in November. The jury, who returned a guilty verdict after deliberating for a few hours, heard closing arguments hours earlier in which Queens Assistant District Attorney Brad Leventhal pushed for a guilty verdict, the New York Post reported. “He’s the man who murdered Karina. This defendant is the perpetrator," Leventhal said, also showing jurors photos of Vetrano. Earlier Monday, the Legal Aid Society, which represented Lewis, said defense lawyers received “troubling and reliable information” about other potential suspects that wasn't turned over prior to the start of the retrial. JOGGER KARINA VETRANO'S SUSPECTED KILLER COMPLAINS ABOUT LEWD RIKER'S ISLAND INMATES, GUARDS The information came to light Thursday after the defense received a letter sent by a person claiming to be a police officer, the New York Daily News reported. “Over the weekend, reporting confirmed the authenticity of this information and its central allegations, significantly changing the direction of the case,” the Legal Aid Society said in a statement Monday, adding lawyers planned to submit motions for a hearing on the same day jury deliberations were set to begin. Tina Luongo, attorney-in-charge at The Legal Aid Society, said Friday that New York City police approached Lewis “to obtain a DNA swab as part of a race-biased dragnet” while hunting for Vetrano’s killer. “We learned that the police approached our Mr. Lewis to obtain a DNA swab as part of a race-biased dragnet, which involved the swabbing of over 360 African-American men in Howard Beach and other neighboring sections of Brooklyn and Queens,” Luongo said. FLASHBACK: GRUESOME DETAILS OF NEW YORK CITY JOGGER'S MURDER REVEALED AT ACCUSED KILLER'S TRIAL But, Leventhal argued against any new information from the letter. "This anonymous letter contains no verifiable information," he said, according to WABC-TV. "The writer of this letter has an agenda, to derail a trial that is about to go to closing arguments." The judge denied a request from the defense for a mistrial regarding the letter. An NYPD spokesperson said in a statement to Fox News that evidence gathered through the investigation showed Lewis was responsible for Vetrano’s death. CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP “The NYPD has painstakingly investigated the murder of Karina Vetrano, and as the Queens District Attorney’s prosecution demonstrates, the evidence clearly shows that Chanel Lewis is responsible for her death,” the statement read. “Multiple legal hearings and two criminal trials, over more than two years, have already exhaustively examined the issues in this anonymous, 11th-hour letter, a missive riddled with falsehoods and inaccuracies.” Lewis’ attorneys and the Legal Aid Society have previously said their client was coerced into a confession and said his DNA was not found at the crime scene. Fox News' Katherine Lam contributed to this report.