Bid-Rig Jury Tapes It Up for the Day

The second day of jury deliberations in the municipal bond bid-rigging trial in New York produced nothing, as the 12 jurors, showing a bent for the granular that matches prosecution and defense, requested more audiotapes of conversations.

Wednesday’s session in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan ended with both sides arguing about what tapes the jury should hear.

Steven Goldberg, Peter Grimm and Dominick Carollo, former executives of General Electric Co. affiliates, face four, three, and two counts, respectively, of conspiracy and wire fraud. The U.S. Justice Department charges them with rigging bids for municipal bond contracts and defrauding issuers and the Internal Revenue Service of millions of dollars.

Daniel Gitner, a Goldberg attorney, asked Judge Harold Baer at day’s end to have the jury hear all tapes, not just the government, on one of the counts. “This way jurors will read the entire book and not just one disjointed chapter,” Gitner said.

Antitrust prosecutor Antonia Hill objected. “I think the jurors are clear about what they want to hear,” she said.

Deliberations are schedueld to resume at 9:30 a.m. Thursday.

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