Personal Assistant Convicted In Rock Manager Murder Case

The verdict was announced in a New York City courtroom after the jury spent less than a day deliberating the case. Stein managed The Ramones before she became a real estate agent who once had music celebs including Sting and Madonna as clients.

Prosecutors contended Lowery stole more than $30,000 from Stein, then beat her to death with a yoga stick in an attempt to cover up the theft.

Lowery had worked for Stein for about 90 days. The 62-year-old woman was bludgeoned to death in her Fifth Avenue apartment in October 2007.

Even in her defense, Lowery was hardly an angel. Her lawyers acknowledged she had stolen money, not only from Stein but from at least one previous employer. Plus she had a somewhat shady history, having been arrested for allegedly stealing a roommate’s identity. One former employer – a church – fired her for embezzlement.

At first Lowery denied knowing anything about the killing, eventually blaming the crime on a masked stranger, whom she claimed told her not to report it. Lowery finally gave a videotaped account of killing the real estate agent, saying she did it after Stein had hassled her about the pace of her work and then blew marijuana smoke in her face.

But even though she later recanted the confession, her original account didn’t jive with the known facts. Authorities later determined there was no marijuana in Stein’s body at the time of death, and that the real estate broker had been struck far more than the six times Lowery had described.

And if that wasn’t enough to sway the jury, the surveillance videotape showed Lowery leaving Stein’s building shortly after the time of the murder.