Curtis Cortez Jones.
Yup, a second white man.
Ain’t diversity great?
For the second time in three months, Curtis Cortez Jones has been convicted of carrying out an Iowa City murder.
A Polk County jury Wednesday found Jones, 42, guilty murdering bail bondsmen Jonathan Wieseler in 2017. The deliberations took about two and a half hours, according to court records.
“We, the jury, find the Defendant, Curtis Cortez Jones, guilty of the crime of Murder in the First Degree committed by premeditation, willfulness and deliberation, and/or while participating in Robbery in the First Degree,” reads a court document from jurors.
Jones was found guilty Nov. 20, 2018 of murdering Iowa City taxi driver Ricky Lillie. On Jan. 5, less than two weeks before the Wieseler trial began, Jones was sentenced to life in prison for killing Lillie, 46. Jones has maintained his innocence in that case.
Ricky Lillie.
The Mount Pleasant man also denied ever seeing or harming Wieseler, whose body was found by his fiancee on April 23, 2017 at his job. Wiesler, 34, had been robbed, beaten and killed the night before in his office at Lederman Bail Bonds, located across the street from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.
Authorities said Jones, a father of 12 who was paroled after a 2005 armed robbery, shot Wieseler in the head with a small-caliber gun and slit his throat.
Sentencing for Jones’ latest conviction is set for 1:30 p.m. March 8 in Johnson County. Regardless of that outcome, he is scheduled to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Jones, who killed Lillie two months after murdering Wieseler, was sentenced to life in prison without parole earlier this month after a jury found him guilty of murdering the taxi driver. Jones got a ride from Lillie before shooting him in the head during a robbery in June 2017, police said.
Jonathan Wieseler, right.