Jurors who convicted Joe Nacchio of criminal insider trading entered the courtroom stone-faced and with eyes downcast to give their verdict Thursday.
But by the time U.S. District Judge Edward Nottingham tolled the word “guilty” 19 times, three were in tears and it was obvious that the decision they reached had come after wrenching deliberation.
The four women and eight men found Nacchio guilty of 19 of the 42 counts with which he was charged after 45 hours of deliberation.
Joe Lindsay, an alternate juror who sat through three weeks of testimony but did not participate in the deliberations, said he agreed with the jury’s decision. No single witness or piece of testimony outweighed others, he added.
“Both sides tried to sway the jury with their final arguments, but in the end the evidence pretty much spoke for itself,” said Lindsay, an electrician from Byers.
Like the five other alternate jurors, Lindsay was dismissed before the 12 primary jurors began deliberations. He said he is not disappointed at missing the deliberations.
“The case was very interesting to me,” he said. “I’m not disappointed (at being dismissed) because even though it’s my duty as a citizen, deciding that case is a pretty heavy responsibility.”
The jury found the former Qwest chief executive not guilty of the first 23 insider-trading counts.
As Nottingham read the not-guilty verdicts, Nacchio’s son Michael sobbed audibly and bent forward, his face in his hands. His mother, Anne Esker, wrapped an arm across his heaving shoulders.
The bad news started coming in at the 24th count, when Nottingham uttered the first of a string of guilty pronouncements and Nacchio became a convicted felon.
Michael sat bolt upright once the bad news started coming and remained stoic throughout the litany as his father stared at the jury.
Three of the women on the jury – Anna Garduno, Denise Dillinger and Vera Rowe – wiped away tears. One of the men, Alexander Wilson, was red-faced.
Jurors left the courthouse by a rear door and were driven to their cars by courthouse personnel.
Several declined reporters’ requests for comment. Reached by telephone later, Rowe, a Greeley resident, who keeps the books for the masonry company she and her husband own, said she was tired and also declined to comment.
Others didn’t return phone calls.
The jurors crowded into two cars and left the parking lot on top of a Greyhound bus station across from the courthouse. A member of the jury drove each car.
Staff writers Kimberly Johnson, Steve Raabe and Kieran Nicholson contributed to this report.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
The Nacchio trial jurors
Eight men and four women served as jurors in the insider-trading trial of former Qwest CEO Joe Nacchio.
Carroll Danforth Weatherly (Jury foreman)
Arvada
United Airlines captain
Meshell Lynn Bontz
Fort Collins
Mortgage broker
Denise Dillinger
Westminster
First Data Corp. employee
Terrell Joseph Dye
Littleton
Radiographer
Anna T. Garduno
Aurora
Administrative assistant
Stanley Jensen
Colorado Springs
Retired
Jeffrey Eugene Johnson
Arvada
Financial services manager
David McCanless
Arvada
Electronics business owner
Emarit Ranu
Fort Collins
Clinical field engineer
Vera Rowe
Greeley
Bookkeeper
Doug Stoneman
Milliken
Maintenance supervisor
Alexander H. Wilson
Brighton
etired Air Force
