The Verdicts

     The verdicts came down this morning about a half hour after the jurors had gone back into the jury room for the day. Apparently they reached the decision on Tuesday and decided to sleep on it.
     If the first trial last Summer cost taxpayers tens of millions of dollars for zero guilty verdicts, this one was no bargain either: again, no guilty verdicts. All of the six defendants were acquitted of all of the charges against them.
     The three defendants who plead guilty stay guilty, said CBS 8 Legal Analyst James Anderson during our live coverage this morning.
     Was this all a political show? Go back to the regular legislative session of 2010 when the Feds called the legislative leadership into a meeting and told them about the investigation and the tapes...before anyone had been indicted. That bizarre meeting had the impact of killing the electronic bingo legislation that would have allowed voters to decide the issue. The FBI, in effect, interfered with the legislative process, using Republican Legislators to wear wires.
     The case isn't over though. The U.S. Justice Department has delayed the scheduled April sentencing for the defendants who plead guilty, and there is speculation that they may seek still more indictments, despite the fact that there is now an Obama appointee in the local U.S. Attorney's Office.
     No comment so far from the prosecution or from former Governor Bob Riley, who's raids on gaming centers were a backdrop to the investigation and indictments.
     And Milton McGregor's lawyer suggested they may file a civil suit to recoup some of the money lost by his client.