Jurors agreed after three days of deliberations following a two-month trial that Raphael Lolos murdered 31-year-old bar manager Jennifer Londono, who was also his business partner.
They also convicted Lolos, 43, of desecrating human remains, stalking and using Londono's credit cards.
Known as a hard worker, "Jenny" Londono managed the new Luna Lounge, on Armory Street, which had its grand opening less than a year earlier.
Her mother said the Dwight Morrow High School graduate went missing on June 25 after closing the bar.
Three days later, a torso cut from the waist to the knees was found by passersby along the rocks of Pier 44 in the Red Hook section of Brooklyn.
It bore a sanskrit tattoo below the right hip, authorities said.
Detectives at the 76th Precinct showed the photograph to Londono's mother, who told them her daughter got a similar tattoo -- which means "Lily" or "Lilyann" -- in tribute to her late aunt, a family friend told Daily Voice.
Soon after, a leg was discovered along the Hudson River near the 79th Street Boat Basin. It wasn't decomposed and the toenails were painted pink, the NYPD said.
Detectives said they quickly learned that Lolos had used Londono's credit cards "consistently and repeatedly" immediately after her death.
Bergen County prosecutor's investigators and NYPD detectives conducted a raid in Linden -- complete with a SWAT team -- and took Lolos into custody.
Cellphone records showed a path that Lolos took along the banks of the Hudson River, prosecutors said.
Investigators also learned that he bought two meat cleavers and some garbage bags at the North Bergen Target.
Experts said Londono's DNA was found on one of the cleavers in her Edgewater apartment, where authorities said she was killed by Lolos because he suspected she was cheating on him.
******
UPDATE: A multi-agency pursuit that began in upstate New York ended 100 miles away in Paramus Thursday night after a Philadelphia man rammed two police cars with a U-Haul van that he was driving on two front rims and a rear flat tire, police said.
******
Click here to follow Daily Voice Elizabeth and receive free news updates.