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Friday evening: No verdict
posted at 2008-04-04 18:48 | Last modified 2008-04-04 18:48
Jurors in the Thomas Wright case didn’t reach a verdict this afternoon. Judge Henry Hight sent them home for the weekend. They’ll be back Monday morning.
There was some action this afternoon: the jury sent out a note asking two questions about Count 4, the $150K bank loan. Specifically, they wanted to know:
- whether “obtaining” the loan included obtaining extensions of the loan (Wright got either two or three extensions, depending who you talk to); and
- whether the “false pretenses” in the charge were limited to the Torlen Wade letter, or whether they might include spoken (mis)representations, too.
As you’d expect, the defense argued that extensions shouldn’t count, and that the charge itself addresses only the letter. The judge agreed with the defense on part 2, but took the prosecution’s side on part 1, ruling that the extensions of the loan qualify as part of an ongoing scheme.
That could be really bad news for the defense. Doug Harris told the jury this morning that the false grant letter from Torlen Wade couldn’t have influenced the bank officer because it was dated March 15th, 10 days after the loan paperwork was initiated. (The loan wasn’t closed till April 5th, so that doesn’t seem to be an entirely valid argument, anyway.)
But the extension paperwork for the loan came six months later, so it fits the timeline. And that paperwork also specifically cites a grant from the state “Rural Health Department” - the agency that Wade's letter said would make the fictitious grant.
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