GOSHEN, N.Y. -- Former Wall Street securities analyst Joseph Pikul was convicted Thursday of murdering his wife, who prosecutors said was beaten and strangled for threatening to blackmail him with pictures of him in women's clothing.

Pikul, 54, was stone-faced as the verdict was read at 12:05 p.m. He faces 25 years to life in prison when he is sentenced April 18 by Orange County Judge Thomas Byrne.


The verdict, following 10 hours of deliberation over two days, capped a sensational six-week trial.

Pikul never denied killing his wife, Diane Pikul, 44, at their summer home in Amagansett, Long Island, on Oct. 24, 1987, but maintained he strangled her as she attacked him with a knife during an argument over an unfamiliar brand of condoms he found under her bed.

Pikul's lawyers had introduced as evidence a police photograph taken after Pikul's arrest showing a long, thin wound to his side. But a surgeon testified the wound could not have been caused by a knife, and probably was self-inflicted.

Assistant District Attorney Alan Joseph contended Pikul killed his wife, a publisher's assistant at Harper's Magazine, because she threatened to blackmail him with photographs of him in women's clothing.

'I felt very confident about the case,' Joseph said after the verdict. 'I had a very strong case.

'There was a lot of evidence to sift through and the jury did it very intelligently with common sense,' he said.

The prosecutor said Pikul's claim of self-defense was 'an incredible version' and 'wasn't worthy of any credibility.'

'There never was any evidence of self-defense. He concocted it at some point in time to explain his actions,' he said.

At the trial, Pikul's first wife, Sandra Jarvinen, told the court her former husband asked whether he could bury Diane Pikul's body in the backyard of her home in Norwell, Mass. She refused.

Diane Pikul's body was found Oct. 29, 1987, in a drainage ditch along the New York State Thruway in New Windsor, Orange County.

The case attracted national attention after child advocates expressed outrage that a New York City judge had given Pikul custody of the couple's two young children after he was arrested in their mother's slaying.

Custody was temporarily transferred to a relative of Diane Pikul's.

Pikul, who had been free on $350,000 bail, has been accompanied at the trial by his third wife, Mary Bain.