NEW YORK (CNN) -- A Manhattan nightclub bouncer was found guilty of murder Wednesday in the slaying of a 24-year-old graduate student from Boston, Massachusetts, the Brooklyn District Attorney's Office said.Darryl Littlejohn, 44, could be sentenced to a maximum of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the death of Imette St. Guillen, a criminology student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Sentencing is scheduled for July 8.
"We're going to appeal," Littlejohn's lawyer, Joyce David, told CNN after the conviction. "We're disappointed. I'm hoping this gives the family of the victim some closure. But I think that the wrong man was convicted."
The verdict came several hours into the first day of deliberations by the jury.
Before the verdict, David stressed to CNN that she believed in the innocence of her client, saying that Littlejohn was framed and that another person was a likely suspect.
"He was a convenient scapegoat who has a long criminal record," David said.
During the trial, witnesses said they saw Littlejohn and St. Guillen leaving The Falls bar in lower Manhattan together early on February 25, 2006. Hours later, St. Guillen's nude body was found in an isolated lot in Brooklyn.
Her face was covered with strips of packing tape, and a sock was stuffed in her throat. She died of asphyxiation. Investigators determined she had been raped.
Littlejohn was charged with murder after investigators linked his DNA to blood found on plastic ties used to bind St. Guillen's hands behind her back.
Littlejohn is already serving a term of 25 years to life for the October 2005 kidnapping of a 19-year-old college student in Queens.
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