West Kendall father to serve life in prison for wife’s murder

A West Kendall father once convicted of molesting a teen at a suburban pool party will serve the rest of his life in prison for the murder of his wife in February 2012.

A Miami-Dade judge on Monday sentenced Jesus Mane for the slaying of Maria Mane, 58, who had planned to divorce her husband after years of tumult. Mane, 63, shot her to death in front of their home on the 13100 block of Southwest 109th Place.

Maria Mane was the caretaker of their son, in his 30s, who suffers from Down Syndrome. Together, the couple – married 36 years – had three sons.

On the day of the slaying, the two spent all day arguing when Maria got dressed to go out without him.

“That’s when I got crazy,” he told Miami-Dade Detective Juan Segovia in a confession.

He also calmly called 911 and confessed, prosecutors Lara Penn and Denise Georges told jurors during trial in May. His unsuccessful defense: that his cheating wife drove him to commit a “crime of passion” – which qualified as manslaughter, not murder.

Jurors convicted him of second-degree murder with a firearm.

“Every domestic violence homicide is a huge tragedy for everyone involved,” Penn said in a statement. “In this case, a special-needs son is without his caregiver and his father is headed to prison. Tragedy is just too soft a word for such an awful situtaion.”

At the time of his arrest, Mane, 63, was an information technology specialist for Siemens Corporation. He was no stranger to the criminal justice system.

In 1999, Mane was charged with lewd and lascivious assault against a 13-year-old male. Ultimately, he pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and accepted probation – which Mane was still serving when he was arrested for Maria’s murder.

Circuit Judge Alberto Milian also sentenced Mane to 15 years in prison for violating probation.

This story was originally published June 15, 2015 at 5:46 PM with the headline "West Kendall father to serve life in prison for wife’s murder."