A jury convicted Robert A. Williams of attempted murder, rape and arson on Tuesday for the attack on a former Columbia University journalism student who was tortured and raped repeatedly for 19 hours last year.

It took the jury just over five hours to reach its verdict  guilty on 44 counts, not guilty on 2  which were read without Mr. Williams in the courtroom. He refused to come to court for most of the trial, remaining in a holding cell.

Mr. Williams, 31, was sleeping when his lawyer notified him that the jury had reached a verdict, and he did not respond and went back to sleep, Justice Carol Berkman of State Supreme Court in Manhattan said just before the foreman read the verdict.

Mr. Williams is to be sentenced next month and could spend the rest of his life in prison.

When Mr. Williams was told that the jury found him guilty, “He didn’t really do anything except what he’s been doing all along, which is being uncommunicative with me,” his lawyer, Arnold J. Levine, said in an interview outside the courtroom. Mr. Levine said he would appeal.