They're expected to return Monday.
]]>But besides their notes and "collective recollection" jurors have a specific set of guidelines the judge ordered them to follow.
Here they are: jury instructions
]]>They're expected to work until 1 p.m.
]]>They return tomorrow for a half-day of closed-door talks.
]]>In a pretty unusual move, prosecutors kept secret the individuals represented in the indictment right up through Rezko's corruption trial.
All of the allegations came out in court, so this isn't anything new. But this is the first time prosecutors put it in black and white for all the public to see. The Sun-Times before the trial did its own ABCs of the government proffer, because that too was written in code.
Here's the real indictment:
Rezko indictment
Tony Rezko was smart enough not to do business on the phone, several people testified at his trial.
Still, prosecutors found some interesting connections after examining his phone records.
Who called Rezko the most? Who did Rezko call most often? Read more in today's Watchdogs
]]>There's no trial today because a juror had a previous conflict. Tomorrow, jurors meet for their first full day of deliberations.
]]>Three men were dismissed today, including two city workers and one state worker.
]]>One of the four dismissed was a man I've previously written about who consistently nodded off, including during closing arguments and jury instructions.
]]>Wednesday is an already scheduled day off, so they return Thursday for their first full day of deliberation.
Jurors told the judge in a note today that they will keep their regular schedule of 9:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and every other Friday to 1 p.m.
“No matter how much Mr. Duffy wants to make this trial about the secret life of Stuart Levine, that’s not what this trial is about,” he said. “There’s somebody else who’s being exposed – it’s the defendant [Rezko’s] secret life.”
]]> Rezko’s secret life had nothing to do with drugs or the all-night parties Levine had at the Purple Hotel in Lincolnwood. For Rezko, it was all about covering his tracks, telling people “don’t talk” to authorities and “there’s going to be a new U.S. Attorney to come in. The cooperators will be dealt with.”Niewoehner then attacked Duffy’s characterization of other witnesses in the case. During his closing argument, Duffy noted that prosecution witness Joe Cari had been on antidepressants when he testified about a conversation with Rezko. He also said another witness, Richard Driehaus, talked to Rezko at a party where people were drinking alcohol.
Niewoehner described it as a smokescreen and pointed out that the witness testimony in the case was corroborated by conversations that the government was secretly recording in 2004.
The tape recorder, Niewoehner said, “doesn’t get drunk, it doesn’t get confused, it doesn’t have Alzheimer’s, it doesn’t have a plea deal. It records what’s said."
And, to finish off, he put together the pieces of evidence gleaned from the tapes, emails and documents to show that Rezko stood to get nearly $4 million should the government not have stepped in and begin charging participants in Rezko’s schemes, including Levine.
“This is a crime, ladies and gentlemen,” Niewoehner concluded. “This is a crime that involves the highest levels of power in the state of Illinois.”
Besides Rezko manipulating votes on a state teacher-pension board to enrich himself and his associates with illegal finder’s fees, “this is a crime that involves deciding where hospitals are going to be built . . . based on who’s willing to pay a bribe,” he said.
“The defendant, ladies and gentlemen, is not a victim here. If he is a victim, he’s victim of nothing else but his own greed.”
-Chris Fusco
]]>"It is OK for the government to be lied to, fooled and conned" by Levine, Duffy said. "But if I suggest to you that Mr. Rezko was the victim of the same, I’ll be chastised.
]]> "Unlike Mr. Rezko, they are professional law enforcement officials whose antennas are always up. They are trained to suspect deception, and he conned them — he got the better of them — and he got his deal."I know you’re going to honor your oath, hold that Constitution close to you, and when your service is done, you’re going to do what . . . is the right thing to do.
"And when you do that, justice is served, and that is what we are here for."
-Chris Fusco