FAIRFAX, Va. — Convicted murderer Brendan Banfield is set to be sentenced Friday, but before he is, his defense will argue that a jury’s guilty verdict should be set aside.
After a high-profile three-week-long trial in January, Banfield was found guilty of murdering his wife, Christine Banfield, and a stranger, Joseph Ryan. He plotted their deaths with Juliana Peres Magalhaes, the Brazilian au pair entrusted with watching his 4-year-old daughter and with whom he was having an affair.
Banfield and Peres Magalhaes lured Ryan to the house on the sexual fetish website FetLife, posing as Christine, soliciting someone to help her play out a violent rape fantasy…