Thomas Clayton, a former star player with the Niagara University hockey team, was sentenced to life in prison without parole by a judge in Steuben County Court on Monday.
Spectators packed the Bath court room to hear the fate of the former pro hockey player.
A Steuben County Court jury found Clayton guilty in late February of first- and second-degree murder in connection with the Sept. 29, 2015 beating death of his wife Kelley at their Town of Caton home. The verdict followed a nearly seven-week trial.
Prosecutors convinced the jury that Clayton hired former employee Michael Beard to kill Kelley in exchange for payment. Beard was convicted on the same charges in early November.
Four days after Clayton's trial ended, Steuben County Judge Peter Bradstreet sentenced Beard to life in prison without parole, while Beard continued to maintain his innocence. Beard is serving his sentence at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York.
Clayton was at a poker game in Corning the night his wife was murdered. He called Steuben County 911 minutes after returning home to report that Kelley was dead and that his house had been robbed.
Investigators didn't buy his story and later that day charged Clayton with his wife's death. A tip from a family member of Kelley's led police to Beard, who initially implicated Clayton but later recanted his confession.
Testimony at Clayton's trial revealed a man who was generous with his money but who also cheated on his wife with several other women, and often complained he couldn't divorce Kelley because she would get everything.
A key aspect of special prosecutor Weeden Wetmore's case was the testimony of Sy Ray, a former police officer who developed software that can process cellphone data from different sources and use it to create maps that can pinpoint a cellphone user's location and movements.
Bradstreet denied the motion, paving the way for Monday's sentencing.
A third suspect in the case, Mark Blandford, a friend of Beard's who acted as a lookout the night Kelley Clayton was killed, was sentenced last week to three to six years in state prison.
Blandford testified at Clayton's trial in exchange for an offer to plead guilty to second-degree manslaughter, rather than the original charge of second-degree murder.
