Jury convicts Costa Mesa man of double murder

After deliberating for about four hours, a jury convicted a Costa Mesa man Friday of killing his ex-wife and her father, prosecutors said.

Robert Alan Lehmann, 37, faces two life terms in prison at his sentencing Nov. 2 after being convicted of two felony counts of special-circumstances murder, with sentencing enhancements of lying in wait, personal use of a deadly weapon and multiple murders to be found true, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.

Emily and Russell Ford went to Lehmann’s home on Santa Clara Circle on May 3, 2011, to pick up her and Lehmann’s 7-year-old daughter.

Prosecutor Matt Murphy told jurors that Lehmann sent his daughter and wife away from the home, and waited by the door with a gun loaded with expanding, hollow-point bullets.

Lehmann’s testimony included him saying that during the shootings he blacked out after taking anxiety medication. Lehmann’s attorney, Jeremy Goldman, said Lehmann’s 911 call and clear remarks during interviews with doctors and police after the shooting were consistent with someone who overdosed.

Murphy called the case a “textbook example” of lying in wait, and said Lehmann is a “control freak” who killed the Fords in a “tantrum” over the temporary loss of custody of his daughter.

— Lauren Williams

Twitter: @lawilliams30