http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/us/09coroner.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin
Hung Jury in Case of Noted Coroner, but He’ll Be Retried
By SEAN D. HAMILL
Published: April 9, 2008
PITTSBURGH — A federal judge declared a mistrial Tuesday in the criminal case against Dr. Cyril H. Wecht, one of the nation’s best-known forensic pathologists, after jurors failed to agree on a verdict on any of 41 charges that he had used his public position as county coroner here to benefit his private pathology practice.
The mistrial, on the 11th day of deliberations, was followed quickly by the government’s announcement that it would retry the case, a decision that enraged Dr. Wecht’s lawyers.
“To announce a retrial of Cyril Wecht this quickly was designed to make sure he would not have one day of respite from what has become a vindictive prosecution — everyone in Pittsburgh knows it,” Jerry S. McDevitt, one of the defense lawyers, said outside court.
Mary Beth Buchanan, the United States attorney, defended the decision.
“We are committed to eliminating the culture of corruption that prevails when officials at the highest levels abuse the public trust,” Ms. Buchanan said in a statement. “Allegations of wrongdoing by public officials can be both challenging to investigate and to prove. A deadlocked jury means only that the jury was unable to reach a unanimous decision on the charges presented.”
The judge, Arthur J. Schwab, set the start of the new trial for May 27.
Dr. Wecht, a Democrat first elected Allegheny County coroner in 1969, rose to national prominence in the early 1970s as a vocal opponent of the single-bullet theory in President John F. Kennedy’s assassination.
He has not only held the coroner’s job for most of the years since but also performed private forensic work in cases around the country and the world, regularly giving his opinion in still more on CNN, Fox News and other news outlets.
In 1980, he faced similar state charges of misusing the coroner’s office but was cleared, though he later paid the county $200,000 in a civil settlement related to the case.
Dr. Wecht, now 77, resigned after being indicted by a federal grand jury in January 2006. The charges include using county equipment, vehicles and employees in his private forensic pathology practice, and creating false expense bills for limousine rides and air transportation.
He is also charged with trading unclaimed cadavers to Carlow University in Pittsburgh in exchange for space to conduct his private autopsies.
“It is nothing more complicated than the defendant wanted to cut his overhead costs and make a substantial profit,” James R. Wilson, one of the assistant United States attorneys who prosecuted the case, told the jury in closing arguments last month.
After weeks of cross-examining prosecution witnesses, Dr. Wecht’s defense team decided not to present any witnesses of its own. In his closing argument, Mr. McDevitt, seizing on the fact that many of the counts involved only nominal cost to the county, told the jurors, “A mountain of evidence is often used to hide a molehill of a case.”
In an interview Tuesday evening, Dr. Wecht said that while the case had been a strain on his family, he had not considered plea-bargaining to avoid a second trial.
“There’s never been a question,” he said.
