RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- A Glen Avon man accused of having his girlfriend killed was acquitted Tuesday in the killing and other charges after a Riverside jury decided there was "nothing to connect him" to the case, City News Service reported.

Following a day and a half of deliberations, a nine-woman, three-man panel found Hugo Leonel Marroquin, 46, not guilty of first-degree murder and solicitation of murder, and rejected allegations of lying in wait and committing a felony for financial gain in the 2004 death of 31-year-old Blanca Vasquez-Nunez.

"I was told that when the jurors went in there to deliberate, the panel was split," defense attorney Darryl Exum said in a telephone interview. "Two guys believed my client was guilty and nothing was going to change their minds. Everybody else felt that way, but said, 'Let's look over the evidence.' When they looked it over, they said, 'We can't connect him. There's nothing to connect him."'

Riverside County Deputy District Attorney Michael Hestrin was not immediately available for comment.

Hestrin said that Marroquin coerced the 14-year-old son of his best friend into beating and fatally stabbing Vasquez-Nunez on the morning of Sept. 23, 2004.

Brian Aroldo Pineda, now 18, pleaded guilty last month to the victim's killing and testified for the prosecution.

"The 11 jurors I talked to said it really came down to the credibility of Mr. Pineda," Exum said. "His testimony in court was very strong. But it came down to his statements prior to implicating my client. The jury absolutely believed that the police fed him the information about Hugo being involved."

According to Hestrin, Marroquin, who lived with Vasquez-Nunez for eight years and had three children with her while legally married to another woman, was "consumed, obsessed with jealousy" when the victim indicated less than a month before the killing that she was thinking about leaving him.

Marroquin concluded that Vasquez-Nunez was seeing another man when she took a job at a Fontana sandwich shop and enrolled in English-language courses in an attempt to better herself, Hestrin said.

Hestrin said Marroquin asked his brother-in-law, an ex-convict and former Mexican Mafia gang member, whether he might know someone who could kill Vasquez-Nunez. However, the man dismissed the idea.

According to Exum, the man's testimony proved unpersuasive to the jury.

Marroquin approached Pineda with an offer of $500 to kill Vasquez-Nunez, Hestrin claimed. When the 14-year-old initially declined the offer, Marroquin told him, "Either you kill Blanca, or I'm going to do the same to you," the prosecutor said.

Hestrin said that on the morning of the slaying, the defendant gave Pineda a lock-blade knife and described how to get into the victim's house after she left to drop their children at school.

Pineda followed the instructions and got inside the house, where he waited for Vasquez-Nunez behind the front door, according to Hestrin. When she entered, Pineda started pummeling her with a baseball bat, but she was able to wrest it away and flee outside, at which point Pineda stabbed her about the neck and head, a total of 20 times before she collapsed and died in the dirt driveway, according to the prosecution.

Pineda was arrested a few days later after telling friends what had happened.

According to Exum, sheriff's investigators interrogated the youth for three hours straight, and he never mentioned Marroquin's name in connection with the killing.

"The kid broke down, and when he broke down, he was told by the investigators, 'Brian, we want to believe you. We know he forced you to do this. We know you wouldn't do this on your own,"' said Exum. "And right after that, that's when he (Pineda) said my client did it."

The attorney said during his post-verdict talk with the jury foreperson, that individual made a point of quoting the end of the police interview with Pineda.

"That's how important it was to this jury," Exum said.

The panel was persuaded by the defense's suggestion that Pineda may have killed the woman to elevate his status in a Riverside-area street gang, the Tokas Marijuana Klick, according to Exum.

"They thought this was his entree into TMK," he said. "They went a step further and said they believed another person was involved in the murder, and that other person was, in fact, a TMK gang member."

Exum said for 3 years and 6 months, Pineda intimated that he only "swung a bat" during the attack on Vasquez-Nunez and that another man -- whom he refused to name -- actually stabbed her.

Pineda dropped the accomplice footnote just prior to Marroquin's trial, Exum said.

Pineda struck a deal with the District Attorney's Office guaranteeing that he would receive a 16 years to life prison sentence if he testified, as opposed to a 25-years to life sentence.

"The sad part is, they gave him this deal to get my client, and they didn't get my client," Exum said.

Pineda was scheduled to be sentenced June 30.

Exum said Marroquin left the Riverside County jail Tuesday and will now proceed with "starting his life over again -- at 46."

The Glen Avon man has been in custody since September 2004.

"He has to get a job, get an apartment," said Exum. "He broke down in court and told me he wanted me to tell his murdered wife's family that he was really sorry they had to be put through this, and that he was sorry they thought he was involved. He hoped they understood the verdict was the truth."

Exum said Vasquez-Nunez's family members left the courthouse immediately after the verdict was announced.