A judge rejected a request for the 25-year minimum after a jury found Alberto Molinet guilty of second-degree murder.

MIAMI, Fla. — A Miami man convicted of killing his wife in front of their teenage daughter has been sentenced to life in prison, closing a criminal case that began with a deadly confrontation inside the family’s home in September 2023 and ended nearly three years later with a jury verdict and the maximum sentence available to the judge.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Zachary James imposed the life term on Alberto Molinet on Sept. 18, about two months after jurors convicted him of second-degree murder in the death of his wife, Yulima Romero. Molinet’s lawyers had asked James to impose a 25-year sentence, citing the defendant’s age and medical problems. Prosecutors argued that the circumstances of the killing supported a harsher penalty. James declined the defense request and concluded that life imprisonment was appropriate.

The sentencing decision placed the final punishment at the center of a case in which the defense and prosecution presented sharply different accounts of what happened inside the couple’s home. The state’s case relied heavily on the testimony of the couple’s daughter, who was 13 at the time of the killing, along with cellphone recordings, crime-scene evidence and testimony about the firearm. By the time of the 2026 trial, the girl was 16 and testified before the jury about what she said she had witnessed.

The confrontation happened shortly before 1 a.m. on Sept. 10, 2023. Police and prosecutors said Molinet and Romero had been arguing before Molinet took a .357 revolver from an open safe. Authorities said the gun was initially unloaded when Molinet pointed it toward Romero and pulled the trigger. Romero became frightened and went into a bathroom, according to the police account. Investigators said Molinet then loaded the revolver and fired through the bathroom door.

Authorities said the confrontation continued after the shot through the door. Prosecutors said Molinet opened or forced open the bathroom door, struck Romero with the revolver and bit her during the struggle. He then fired again, striking her and causing her to fall, according to the state’s evidence. Prosecutors said Molinet told Romero, “You’re not leaving here,” before firing the fatal shot into her chest. The details were presented in court and later summarized by the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office after the conviction.

The couple’s daughter was inside the home during the violence and called 911 after the gunfire, authorities said. Cellphone video from the night became an important part of the prosecution’s case. In one recording described in court reporting, the girl can be heard telling her father in Spanish that he had killed her mother and that she would never forgive him if Romero died. NBC South Florida also reported that prosecutors said Molinet made the girl take photographs and video of Romero after the shooting.

Police officers who responded found Romero dead at the scene. Investigators recovered the revolver, and Molinet was taken into custody later that morning. Early police reports provided the first public account of the sequence inside the home, but the case did not reach a jury until 2026. That trial forced jurors to decide whether the evidence supported prosecutors’ reconstruction of the shooting or the defense account challenging responsibility for Romero’s death.

Prosecutors said the defense attempted to place blame on the daughter. The State Attorney’s Office described her testimony as a central part of the case, but prosecutors did not rely on her account alone. They showed jurors videos from her phone and crime-scene photographs and called a medical examiner to explain injuries found on Romero. Prosecutors said the medical examiner demonstrated that the revolver was consistent with a patterned injury to Romero’s head, evidence the state used to support its allegation that Molinet had struck her with the gun.

The firearm itself also became part of the courtroom presentation. Jurors were allowed to handle the revolver, according to the State Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors argued that its weight and physical characteristics undercut the defense theory presented at trial. The jury ultimately accepted the state’s case and returned a guilty verdict on July 16, finding Molinet guilty of one count of second-degree murder. The verdict came almost three years after Romero was killed.

Second-degree murder does not require prosecutors to prove the same kind of advance planning associated with a premeditated first-degree murder charge, but the conviction exposed Molinet to a possible life term. Because a firearm was used and Romero was killed, the defense approached sentencing with a lengthy prison term unavoidable. Rather than contesting whether Molinet would spend years in custody, his attorneys asked the court to choose the lower end of the available punishment and impose 25 years.

At the Sept. 18 sentencing hearing, the defense cited Molinet’s age and several health problems, including diabetes and kidney disease, in support of its request for leniency. Molinet was reported as 73 at the time of the sentencing coverage, though some later reports listed him as 74. The judge nevertheless determined that those circumstances did not justify the minimum sentence. James imposed life imprisonment, giving the prosecution the sentence it had sought and ensuring that Molinet would remain incarcerated indefinitely.

Prosecutors also supplied additional context for the argument that preceded the shooting. They said Romero wanted a friend to visit the home and that Molinet objected. Prosecutors characterized him as controlling and said his opposition to the visit contributed to the dispute. That description reflects the state’s account of the events and was presented during the criminal proceedings; the known public record does not establish a broader motive beyond the confrontation described by prosecutors and police.

The case also turned on the unusual position of the couple’s child, who was both a witness to her mother’s killing and a key witness at her father’s murder trial. Prosecutors publicly praised her for testifying and emphasized that the state had corroborating evidence rather than asking jurors to rely exclusively on a teenager’s memory of a traumatic event. The videos recorded on her phone preserved portions of the aftermath, while the medical evidence and the recovered firearm allowed the state to test parts of her account against physical evidence.

Romero’s age was not reported in the accounts reviewed for this story. Public reporting has focused instead on the sequence of violence, the daughter’s role as a witness, the evidence shown at trial and the dispute over Molinet’s sentence. The State Attorney’s Office credited Felony Division Chief Tiffany Finger and Assistant State Attorney Jeremy Martin with securing the conviction after the July trial before James.

Taken together, the gun, medical findings, cellphone recordings and eyewitness testimony gave jurors several separate ways to test the prosecution’s reconstruction of Romero’s killing. That convergence, rather than any single exhibit, became the defining feature of the state’s case. The jury’s July verdict established Molinet’s criminal responsibility, and the life sentence imposed in September followed from that finding.

Author note: Last updated November 6, 2026.