A Puerto Rico woman found guilty of hiring a hit man to kill her wealthy Canadian husband more than a decade ago was sentenced to life in prison on Friday.
Aurea Vazquez Rijos cried as a federal judge issued the sentence and ordered that she be transferred to a prison in Fort Worth, Texas. Judge Daniel Dominguez said he believed the jury’s guilty verdict over Vazquez’s statement that she is innocent.
Her defense attorneys plan to appeal in a case that led to an international manhunt.

Ex-beauty queen Aurea Vazquez Rijos [left], who was accused in 2008 for the murder of her husband, CanadianAdan Anhang Uster [right], in 2005, was jailed for life on Friday

Aurea Vazquez Rijos, who was accused in 2008 for the murder of her husband, Canadian Adan Anhang Uster in 2005, was jailed for life on Friday
Vazquez had been charged with offering a man, Alex Pabon-Colon, $3 million to kill Uster, a real estate developer..
He was stabbed repeatedly and hit in the head with an object while walking with Vazquez through the historic part of Puerto Rico’s capital in September 2005, just 12 hours after prosecutors said Anhang had asked for a divorce.

Aurea Vazquez Rijos was eventually convicted in Oct 2018

Vazquez and Anhang had signed a prenup just one day before getting married, with Anhang’s value estimated at more than $24 million and Vazquez’s at nearly $62,300.
If Anhang died, it was agreed his wife would receive $8million.
The Canadian developer and Puerto Rican pageant winning wife split up just six months after getting married.

Canadian businessman Adan Anhang Uster, pictured with his wife Aurea Vazquez-Rijos, was assassinated in 2005 after the couple met at a San Juan restaurant to discuss their divorce

Fugitive beauty queen Aurea Vazquez-Rijos (pictured above) and arrested her as she got off a plane in Madrid in 2013 by Spanish law enforcement agents acting on the FBI’s wanted notice

In 2013, Spanish law enforcement agents acted on the FBI’s wanted notice of fugitive beauty queen Aurea Vazquez-Rijos and arrested her as she got off a plane in Madrid.

Up until this point, generous Anhang showered Vazquez-Rijos with lavish gifts including a car, an apartment and a business in Old San Juan called ‘The Pink Skirt.’
Six months after Anhang’s death, Vazquez sued his parents seeking $1 million in damages and $8 million from his estate.
She later left for Florence, Italy and was arrested in June 2013 after flying from Italy to Spain.

She and her one-month-old baby were extradited to Puerto Rico two years later, leaving behind twin daughters she had with a man in Italy.
Also sentenced to life Friday was Vazquez’s sister, Marcia Vazquez Rijos. Still pending is the sentencing for an ex-boyfriend of hers, Jose Ferrer Sosa.
The main suspect, Alex Pabon Colon, pleaded guilty 10 years ago to killing Anhang and cooperated with prosecutors.

Anhang Uster tried in vain to fight off the hired assailant shouting ‘run, baby, run’ to his beauty queen wife, thinking that both their lives were in grave danger.
He din not realize that his wife of six months was the one who had ordered his death and used $3million of his money to pay a hit man to stab him death.
On October 12, 2005, Jonathan Roman-Rivera was arrested at the Pink Skirt Club after a witness picked him out.
He was found guilty on or about October 2007, and sentenced to 105 years in prison.
However, another witness later came forward and pointed out Pabon-Colon as Uster’s real killer.

Investigators were able to crack the 2005 case of murdered Canadian millionaire Adam Anhang Uster when Dereck Osterman Kim [photo], told police the real identity of the killer

In June 2008, Roman-Rivera was released from prison and Pabon-Colon was arrested and confessed to investigators. On June 4, 2008, a Federal Grand Jury in the District of Puerto Rico indicted Aurea Vazquez-Rijos and Pabon-Colon, who pleaded guilty on June 13, 2008.
Jose Ferrer-Sosa also participated in setting up the 2005 murder of  Adam Anhang, a Canadian businessman who was married to his girlfriend’s sister.
Aurea Vazquez-Rijos did not comply with the investigation into her husband’s death, instead she filed a $1million civil lawsuit seeking damages against Anhang’s family, as well as millions more from his estate.
Charged by a United States grand jury for her millionaire husband’s death, Aurea Vazquez-Rijos fled to Italy in 2008, where she sought residency that would have protected her because Italy does not extradite suspects who face the death penalty.
Her relationship with an air-conditioner contractor in Florence resulted in the August 18, 2008 birth of her now 10-year-old twin girls.
She would lose custody of her twin daughters once their father and his family got news that she was wanted to the murder of her husband.
In 2013, Aurea Vazquez-Rijos flew to Madrid where she was arrested by Spanish law enforcement agents.
As part of the extradition process, the Spanish government agreed to turn the Puerto Rican beauty queen on the condition that she wouldn’t be subjected to the death penalty.

Police in San Juan, Puerto Rico, survey the 2005 murder scene where Adam Anhang, a Canadian businessman, lay dead after he was brutally assassinated 

Prosecutors solidified their case based on the key testimony of Dereck Osterman-Kim, Pabon-Colon’s best friend, who tearfully said in court that his buddy called in for a favor, asking him to pick him up before he confessed to the murder.
‘He told me he had killed a person. I kept driving around. It is not easy because it caught me by surprise. He told me he was going to be rich,’ Osterman-Kim said in court during a September 13 hearing, according to a statement published by El Vocero de Puerto Rico.
‘He wanted to make sure that person would be dead … He wanted me to see what happened on San Justo street.’
After a two year wait, Aurea Vazquez-Rijos was handed over and she will now spend the rest of her life behind bars.