Witnesses who knew Rusty Tomlin — and the lengths the San Jose drug kingpin would go to preserve his empire — had a way of turning up dead.

His wife had her brains blown out. An associate dropped dead in a prison library. Another died of AIDS. The last hanged himself while in a federal witness protection program.

Tomlin survived them all. But a determined group of prosecutors and investigators kept digging.

On Friday, prosecutors exacted justice — 22 years after Tomlin had the man laundering his money gunned down, fearing he would spill the beans to federal drug agents.

A jury of five women and seven men found Tomlin guilty of ordering two of his minions to carry out the 1989 hit that took down Charlie Magonia and left his teenage daughter fatherless.

“It’s been a long road,” said Karyn Sinunu-Towery, a Santa Clara County assistant district attorney who worked on the case.

Tomlin, 64, and considerably bulkier than he was during the peak of his power, kept his cool and merely pursed his lips as the clerk read the verdict. He was convicted of one count of murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait and one felony count of conspiracy. The jury rejected a second special-circumstance allegation that he killed for financial gain.

No longer a slim young man proudly touting a tuxedo and trophy girlfriend as he was shown in a Las Vegas photo, Tomlin now faces life in prison without the possibility of parole when Judge Diane Northway sentences him Jan. 13.

Gone are the high times when he bought houses all around Silicon Valley and had his men slinging duffel bags full of cash.

On the day in November 1989 that Magonia was killed outside his office on South Bascom Avenue in San Jose, Tomlin vanished. He lived for 14 years under a false identity in Compton until he was arrested in 2003 on a tip from an incensed girlfriend. Even then, he awaited trial for eight years — the longest any Santa Clara County inmate has spent in the local jail — partly because of the deaths of witnesses.

Prosecutor Matt Braker said Tomlin may have escaped scot-free but for the tireless efforts of District Attorney Investigator John Kracht, San Jose police Sgt. Jeff Ouimet and Sinunu-Towery.

Sinunu-Towery also had grateful words for the key witness in the case — Olan Dwayne Willis, the man who drove the getaway car after Magonia was killed. Willis and the shooter, Chris Outley, who ran drugs for Tomlin, were convicted of murder in 1992. But both refused to testify against Tomlin until Sinunu-Towery and Kracht persuaded Willis to take the stand against his former boss.

“He did a really brave thing,” Sinunu-Towery said, referring to Willis. “He was so afraid.”

During the trial, Tomlin’s defense attorney, Patrick Kelly, tried to paint Willis as an opportunistic liar, noting he was freed by a parole board after 21 years behind bars after agreeing to cooperate. Although the jury didn’t buy everything Willis said, they found the key parts of his testimony credible.

“We thought the areas he testified about that were the most important were true,” said Juror No. 12, a retired engineer in his 60s who asked that his name not be used. “Tomlin had all these guys working for him. They would do anything for him.”

Braker, who was named the office’s prosecutor of the year in 2010, managed to pull the complicated, decades-old case together, clearly laying out the scenario involving five different cars, an old motel receipt, money wired via Western Union and testimony from a convicted killer.

It wasn’t easy. The panel first voted 10-2 in favor of guilt. The jury then decided to focus exclusively on the conspiracy, figuring if they all agreed, they would be able to reach a consensus on the murder count. It worked.

“I feel very good for Magonia’s daughter,” Braker said. “She waited 22 years for this day, and it was worth the wait.”

Contact Tracey Kaplan at 408-278-3482.