Robert F. Bukaty / AP file
Mark Strong leaves the Cumberland County Court House in Portland, Maine, on Jan. 18.
By M. Alex Johnson, staff writer, NBC News
A Maine jury needed only a few hours Wednesday?morning to convict Mark Strong in the so-called Zumba prostitution case, in which he was charged with helping to run a sex business with his fitness-instructor mistress.
Strong, 57, an insurance agent, faced 12 counts of promotion of prostitution and one count of conspiracy in the trial in Alfred, Maine. No sentencing date was set, NBC station WLBZ of Bangor reported.
In closing arguments Tuesday, prosecutors argued that Strong was heavily involved in running the sex business with his mistress, Alexis Wright, out of her Zumba fitness studio in Kennebunk, Maine.
During the trial, prosecutors played video that they said established that Strong knew Wright was charging clients for sex and that he used hidden cameras and Skype to watch the encounters himself.
Defense lawyers argued that Strong was simply a foolish 57-year-old businessman so in love with the 30-year-old Zumba instructor that he made morally offensive but not illegal choices.
Strong has alleged that he was targeted because of his research into misconduct in the Kennebunk Police Department.
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