Five jurors who voted to acquit Dr. Cyril H. Wecht said Monday that prosecutors should forgo what they believe would be a costly and futile retrial.
"We just could not find any intent to defraud in any shape or form," said Dawn A. Cashmere of Cranberry. "We truly did try. We went through count by count by count. ... It's just time to let everything go."
No other jury could reach a unanimous verdict, the five jurors said in their first public appearance. U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab declared a mistrial April 8 after the 11 jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked.
"We kept waiting on something big to be dropped on us, like a smoking gun, but it never happened," said juror Bruce Thomas of Kittanning.
The office of U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan declined to comment.
Wecht, 77, of Squirrel Hill is scheduled to be tried again May 27 on 41 theft and fraud charges. The first trial for the former Allegheny County coroner, which began Jan. 28, lasted 10 weeks.
The renowned forensic pathologist was accused of 41 counts of using his public office for private gain.
Two of six jurors who voted to convict Wecht on some counts declined to comment, and the four others could not be reached.
Wecht lawyer Jerry McDevitt attended the jurors' news conference but did not comment.
Jurors said the final split was 8-to-3 in favor of acquittal on 27 counts charging Wecht with using a county fax machine and the U.S. mail in a scheme to defraud county taxpayers.
They agreed with an unnamed juror who asserted in a letter to prosecutors that jurors split 6-to-5 to convict on 14 other allegations that Wecht charged private clients inflated or bogus travel expenses and that he misappropriated more than $5,000 a year of county resources for personal use.
One juror, Stanley Albright of Monroeville, was dismissed for medical concerns. He said he would have voted to acquit Wecht.
The five jurors who spoke yesterday said they believe Wecht made mistakes but were not convinced he meant to cheat taxpayers -- a necessary element to find him guilty.
"I'm not anywhere near as bright as Dr. Wecht, but I could have developed a better plan, if that's what he intended," said jury foreman Robert Bible Jr. of New Brighton.
Prosecutors' decision to seek a second trial before asking the jurors how they voted offended many of them.
"I kind of felt like it was a slap in the face," Bible said. "Like, 'We don't care about what time you put into it or what you thought.' "
"I felt completely devalued," said Kimberly K. Jones of Slippery Rock. "Time and energy -- I felt like everything I'd put in went out the window."
The five wondered whether politics drive the prosecution, an argument defense lawyers were prohibited from making during the trial.
"I don't know if they were political or not, but the motivation was definitely less than pure," said Linda Chizmar of Shaler.
The jurors questioned what seemed to them to be a one-sided investigation, an excessive amount of court documents that seemed more about "quantity than quality," and prosecution witnesses -- including a nun -- who were sympathetic to the defense.
The jurors cited Sister Grace Ann Geibel, the former president of Carlow University, who disputed a government claim that Wecht traded corpses from the county morgue to Carlow in exchange for free lab space to work on private cases.
"She was vehement about that," Chizmar said.
Defense lawyers yesterday appealed to the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, asking the court to force Schwab to rule more quickly on motions, including one seeking to have him removed from the case. The defense team expects to lose those rulings, which would lead to more appeals.
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