MARTINEZ — On its third day of deliberation, a Contra Costa jury convicted a Modesto woman of murder, Robbery and burglary in the 2016 killing of an Antioch man whom prosecutors say was targeted because he flaunted jewelry and kept large amounts of cash at his home.

Serina Mendoza, 31, was described by prosecutors as the “mastermind” behind a plot to set up and rob 33-year-old Jabbar Mahmood. Police believe three others participated in Mendoza’s killing but none of them other than Mendoza — including the suspected shooter — have been arrested.

“Mr. Mahmood’s family patiently waited years to see justice,” deputy district attorney Jennifer Tompkins said after the verdict. “Today they finally received justice, and today marks the day they can start to heal and move forward.”

Mendoza’s three-week trial started with her attorneys telling jurors that Mendoza was forced at gunpoint to participate in the robbery by three mysterious figures known by the nicknames Lalo, Kilo, and The Done. They argued that the others took Mendoza’s phone and sent text messages to Mahmood, then forced Mendoza to help them open Mahmood’s front door so they could hold him at gunpoint.

Prosecutors, though, described Mendoza as the brains behind the operation, arguing that while it may not have been a preplanned murder, robbing Mendoza inside his own home drastically increased the likelihood that there would be violence.

“She’s the one that set it up,” Tompkins told jurors during closing arguments Aug. 19. “She’s basically the whole facilitator.”

Mahmood, who was known to be a pimp, was shot and killed in the upstairs of his home, while he was getting dressed in anticipation of going to a club with Mendoza. Months earlier, he had met her at a strip club called Deja Vu in Stockton, and had what Mendoza described in one text message to Mahmood as a “love-hate relationship.”

In recent text conversations Mahmood had tried to convince her to get a house with him in the valley and make as much as $1,000 per day. Prosecutors contended that she’d helped recruit prostitutes for him.

Tompkins described Mahmood as a paranoid man who wouldn’t open his door to just anyone, yet said Mendoza, a “skillful manipulator,” had managed to earn his trust.

Mendoza testified in her own defense that she was not a willing participant in the crime. During the defense closing arguments, her attorney, Jai Gohel, told jurors that prosecutors were hoping to convict her based on her “life choices, how she talks, (and) employment choices” instead of hard evidence.

“The evidence is that Serina liked Jabbar … you get the sense that they have a complicated relationship, but she likes him,” Gohel said. He later added, “The only way Serina Mendoza would be present at the robbery is against her will.”

He told jurors it made “no sense” Mendoza would use her own phone to contact Mahmood that night, and that it was clear the plan was to rob Mahmood, not murder him. He asked why Mendoza would willingly join a robbery plot against someone who could easily identify her.

“Any participant in the robbery would assume Jabbar was going to live,” Gohel said, adding that Mahmood was killed because “he fought back … to his credit.”

Prosecutors, though, described it as an execution-style killing. Mendoza was only identified as a suspect when a woman who was facing federal prescription drug fraud charges came forward and offered information on Mahmood’s slaying in exchange for a break in her case. When that witness testified at a pretrial hearing, Mendoza called a relative and tried to arrange for her friends to show up in court to intimidate her, Tompkins said.

Mendoza’s story of being forced into the robbery was one of several “self-serving lies that change depending on where she is in the timeline and who she wants to manipulate,” Tompkins argued to jurors.

After the verdict, Gohel said his client plans to appeal.

“This was a very unfortunate result,” Gohel said. “The jury worked hard, but they did not seem to credit that my client had no motive to rob this man, and there has been no explanation for why the real killer is still free.”