Thursday, November 5, 2009 4:30 PM

Ring Jury Was Split 8 to 4

The jury in the trial of former Jack Abramoff lobbying associate Kevin Ring was split -- eight to convict and four to acquit -- according to a juror interviewed by Main Justice.

Ring was on trial on eight counts of conspiracy, illegal gratuities and honest services wire fraud, and the judge declared a mistrial after jurors announced they were deadlocked for three consecutive days. The jury originally arrived at a verdict on one of the honest services wire fraud charges, but later lost unanimity on that charge. Jurors had found Ring not guilty on that charge, but after further deliberations they split -- five to convict, six to acquit and one undecided, the juror revealed.

One sticking point for the juror, who voted to acquit, was that the government based a large part of its case on e-mails between Ring, Abramoff, other lobbyists and public officials.

Ring "could have had a lot of intentions, and those emails weren't enough to spell them out," the juror said. "If the prosecution could have discriminated between lobbying and corrupt lobbying better, then they would have made their case."

But another juror, Joy Stevenson, who voted to convict, said "the e-mail traffic" convinced her Ring was guilty. She said the e-mails showed her that Ring and the other lobbyists were "very shrewd... very careful... very strategic."

The case is set to be retried in June 2010, allowing time for the statute of limitations on potential charges against possible witnesses to expire and for the Supreme Court to hear three cases involving honest services wire fraud charges. Stevenson had some advice for the Department of Justice's next attempt at a conviction: "I think the government, I think those guys were great. I was very impressed with all of them.... But I was looking for them to pull it all together at the end. You know, bam! There was no clincher."