A case that has become a black eye on both the justice system and the Alabama gambling industry isn’t over just yet. Despite a jury returning with no convictions in the Alabama Gambling Trial, the saga continues.
The people of Alabama will have to wait until the fall to gain anymore insight into whether there was corruption involved, to what extent and who were the real culprits.
Federal prosecutors and defense lawyers had a telephone conference call, Monday, with U.S. District Judge Myron Thompson and learned that the federal judge plans to retry parts of Alabama’s gambling corruption case starting Oct. 3.
The Justice Department, which was largely embarrassed by the first trial has declined to comment on the call.
Defense attorneys said the prosecution wants to go ahead with a retrial of the seven remaining defendants but contrary to the defense’s wishes, they want to separate them into three groups for retrial.
Last week, a jury returned not guilty verdicts on 91 charges and could not reach a unanimous decision on 33 others, and two defendants were acquitted on all charges.
Call it a re-do for the prosecution who largely failed to present any strong evidence to back their allegations of gambling corruption.
