Wednesday, April 07, 2010

Seven defendants get hung jury in Judge Graham trial

UPDATE -- Sad to report that Judge Graham's mother passed away, so he wasn't present to declare the mistrial. It was Judge Jordan who did so while Judge Graham travelled out of town. Our thoughts are with Judge Graham...

After a two-month trial and over a week of deliberations, Judge Graham Judge Jordan declared a mistrial today in a mortgage fraud case. Interestingly, shortly before trial, Judge Graham severed the case, finding that a trial of 15 defendants at once would be too unyieldly. It will be interesting to see if the government retries this group of defendants before the next batch, or how it will work...

SECOND UPDATE -- A tipster emailed me that the lawyers are: Mike Smith; Len Fenn; Isreal Encinosa; Peter Patanzo; Scott Sakin; Orlando do Campo and Sherri Romano. Congrats to them.

3 comments:

  1. Hey- give the defense lawyers some props. WHo were they? Not everyone gets their cases covered on the front pages of the Tampa Tribune.

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  2. Ha! Just found out and posted it.

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  3. Anonymous10:52 PM

    Heard that one of the jurors didn't even understand english and the judge refused to strike him/her... Have to see if defendants get off the next time around... any bets?! :)

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