Banana republicans on trial: March 20, 2013.

Woo hoo woo hoo hoo!

I was out and about until just now and returned home to find out we have verdicts in the Bell corruption trial.

Maybe.

Former council member Luis Artiga: acquitted on all twelve of the charges against him.

Former council member George Cole: found guilty of two counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on two counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on four other counts.

Former council member Victor Bello: found guilty of four counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on four counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on eight other counts.

Former mayor Oscar Hernandez: found guilty of five counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on five counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts.

Former council member Teresa Jacobo: found guilty of five counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on five counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts.

Former council member George Mirabal: found guilty of five counts of misappropriation of funds from the Solid Waste and Recycling Authority, and not guilty on five counts of misappropriation of funds related to the Public Finance Authority. The jury was unable to reach a verdict on ten other counts.

The LAT has a handy cheat sheet covering who was convicted of what, in addition to their news coverage.

But.

…In a note, Juror No. 7 told Judge Kathleen Kennedy that he had misgivings about the deliberations.
The cryptic note said that the juror “questioned myself on information that had me on a [doubt] of thing [sic] that were not presented properly.”

A second juror sent a note saying “she believes the jury is ‘getting away from your instructions’ and possibly misunderstanding a law on ‘several levels.'”.

The judge, at this point, seems to be disinclined to “reopen verdicts that have been reached”, but the jury is supposed to report back to the courtroom tomorrow at 9 AM. We’ll see what happens; the judge may question the jurors about the returned verdicts, the judge may ask them to deliberate more on the undecided verdicts, some combination of the two, or possibly something I haven’t even thought of yet. We shall see.

By the way, the council members apparently have a good shot at getting probation and community service, if the verdicts stand.

But it still a good day. And this comic strip seems appropriate.

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