NEW YORK (CMC):

A New York court has found Trinidadian Kelly Forbes guilty of first-degree manslaughter for strangling her American-born husband last year.

Forbes, 29, collapsed and wailed as the jury foreman read the guilty verdict Monday in the Nassau County Court in New York.

Jurors deliberated for only two hours before reaching their verdict, rejecting Forbes' claims that she was defending herself when she strangled Michael Forbes, her husband of two months, with an electrical cord last November.

Maximum

She faces a maximum 25 years in prison when Judge Jerald Carter sentences her at a later date.

"She got what she deserves," said Willie Forbes, 74, the father of the deceased.

But the woman's father, Donny Chadee, described the trial as "an injustice", and her lawyer Anthony Capetola said he plans to appeal the verdict.

Prosecutors said when police arrived at Forbes' Merrick home on November 21 last year, she told them that Michael had come at her with an electrical cord while she slept.

Rap sheet

Police also said the Trinidadian told them that her husband, who had a 25-year-old rap sheet that included convictions for rape and attempted murder, had been violent with her during their marriage.

But prosecutor Michael Canty said the only evidence that the husband had been abusive to Kelly came from the accused herself in statements to the police.

He said she never told her brother, whom she spoke to nearly every day, or her lover, whom she started dating just weeks into the marriage.

The prosecutor said that the deceased had bought his wife a nice house and a new car during their short marriage and contended these were "not the acts of an abuser who is holding his wife prisoner in their home".