In Wisconsin, a 50-year-old man, already serving two life sentences without parole for the brutal murders of his girlfriend and her best friend, has been found guilty of assaulting a prison guard. He stabbed the women to death during a jealous outburst after witnessing them in an intimate moment and feeling “humiliated.”

On Wednesday, following a brief one-day trial, a Brown County jury convicted Richard Sotka on the charge of felony battery by a prisoner. After the guilty verdict, County Circuit Court Judge Beau Liegois imposed an additional three-year sentence to run consecutively with his life sentences.

Sotka made news previously for his 2023 conviction on two counts of first-degree murder with a dangerous weapon in the deaths of Rhonda Cegelski, his 58-year-old partner, and her close friend, Paula O’Connor, aged 53.

Based on a criminal complaint reported by WLUK, a local Fox affiliate, Sotka attacked the prison guard with multiple punches to the head after the officer removed forbidden items from his cell.

“Sotka shouted something, and then hit me with his fist for the first time,” the officer recounted in a statement following the incident. “The blow landed on my left ear, causing pain and causing me to see stars. I shouted, ‘What are you doing?’ I heard Officer AG call for reinforcements over the radio. Sotka continued to punch me repeatedly on the head as we moved backward.”

The victim said he had trouble deflecting Sotka’s blows.

“At one point I went into a defensive position as he kept hitting me,” the victim said. “I finally was able to extend my arms and stop his strikes from hitting me. Officer AG arrived, and I felt Sotka’s level of tension drop.”

As previously reported by Law&Crime, police on Jan. 29, 2023, responded to the duplex Sotka and Cegelski shared after the latter’s daughter found the two victims dead inside and called 911. Both had been stabbed multiple times with an 8-inch blade recovered from the scene.

According to a report from the Green Bay Press Gazette, both women had been stabbed multiple times in the face and neck. O’Connor’s body was closer to the front door of the duplex with a knife still stuck in her neck. Cegelski’s body was located in the kitchen.

Investigators quickly sought Sotka, who was dating Cegelski, as a person of interest in the women’s murders.

Sotka at the time was out on bond from an unrelated case in Oconto County, Ohio, where he was charged with stalking, harassment, and violating a restraining order and was required to wear a GPS ankle monitor. But Sotka cut the monitoring device from his leg and ditched it along Interstate 41, resulting in the criminal damage to property charge.

Authorities in Arkansas apprehended Sotka about 10 hours after the victims’ bodies were discovered. He was carrying about $4,000 in cash and had his passport with him, authorities said.

In a criminal complaint, police said that after his arrest, Sotka confessed to the double murder, telling investigators that he felt “humiliated” after getting out of the shower and seeing the two women engaging in sexual activity after a night of heavy drinking. He also repeatedly denied the stalking charges he was facing in the unrelated case.

“He said he asked [Cegelski] where he was supposed to go and at that point he said he lost it, he just lost it. He said he couldn’t tell [police] details or tell [police] exactly what happened but he knows he completely lost it,” authorities wrote. “[Sotka] stated, ‘I’m guilty of killing these girls but I’m not guilty of what they said I did in Oconto County.”

Additionally, Sotka told authorities that he had previously “snapped” on a different woman he was dating about 20 years prior to the murders, per the Gazette. In that case, he reportedly knocked out the victim’s teeth, broke her leg, and fractured her skull. The victim in that case also testified during Sotka’s murder trial.