WEST

JURY BEGINS DELIBERATION IN PETERSON TRIAL

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – Jurors began deliberating the fate of Scott Peterson yesterday, more than five months after testimony began in the murder of his wife and their unborn son.

Judge Alfred Delucchi sent the panelists off with lunch into the jury room after about 45 minutes of instructions. Jurors must decide whether Mr. Peterson killed his pregnant wife and dumped her body in San Francisco Bay, or was merely a straying husband who was framed. Judge Delucchi plans to keep the jury sequestered until they reach a verdict. In a brief rebuttal to the defense closing arguments, prosecutor Rick Distaso advised jurors not to find reasonable doubt in an unreasonable interpretation of evidence.

“It’s just not reasonable that anyone put that body in the bay to frame him. If it’s not reasonable, you must reject it,” Mr. Distaso said.

Winding up their case earlier in the day, defense lawyers lashed out at the notion that Laci Peterson’s fetus died in her womb. Lawyer Mark Geragos reminded jurors that authorities never found the placenta or the fetus’s umbilical cord, leaving little evidence to determine whether the male fetus was born alive and killed later.

“If the fetus died later, it’s not Scott Peterson who did that,” Mr. Geragos said.

– Associated Press

SOUTH

SMOKERS ASK COURT TO RESTORE $145 BILLION AWARD

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – Sick Florida smokers urged the state’s highest court yesterday to punish the tobacco industry for “fraud and deceit” by restoring a $145 billion class-action award, the largest ever by an American jury.

The smokers’ lawyers told the Florida Supreme Court to reduce the amount if the justices think it is too large, as long as they also reverse an appeals court decision that overturned the verdict and punitive judgment.

“That opinion totally ignores a half-century of fraud and deceit by the tobacco industry,” Stanley Rosenblatt told the high court.

A tobacco lawyer argued that the original class-action certification was wrong because every smoker is affected differently and should file suits separately rather than in one case. As a class-action, the Miami lawsuit was estimated to include 300,000 to 700,000 ill Floridians.

– Associated Press

FIRST INTERNET SPAM CONVICTIONS; ONE ACQUITTED

LEESBURG, Va. – A brother and sister who sent junk e-mail to millions of America Online customers were convicted yesterday in the nation’s first felony prosecution of Internet spam distributors.

Jurors recommended that Jeremy Jaynes be sentenced to nine years in prison and fined Jessica DeGroot $7,500 after convicting them of three counts each of sending e-mail messages with fraudulent and untraceable routing information. A third defendant, Richard Rutkowski, 30, was acquitted of similar charges.

The judge was still considering a motion from defense attorneys to set aside the verdict and will hear arguments on it at a later date. Previously, he expressed reservations about allowing the case against DeGroot and Mr. Rutkowski to go to a jury. Virginia, where AOL is based, prosecuted the case under a 2003 law barring people from sending bulk e-mail that is unsolicited and masks its origin.

– Associated Press

EAST

MAN CHARGED WITH EIGHT RAPES, DNA TESTS PENDING

PHILADELPHIA – A man was charged yesterday with raping eight women in attacks that had seemed unrelated but were linked by DNA evidence and detective work.

Test results are due next week on whether the suspect’s DNA matches genetic evidence from the attacks, but police said they are confident they charged the right man. The suspect, John Wortham, 40, lived in the south Philadelphia neighborhood where half the attacks occurred between 2002 and June, police said. Wortham has been in jail since July on an unrelated burglary charge. He faces rape, kidnapping, and other charges for the eight attacks. Police Captain John Darby said evidence is being studied to see if still more cases might be related. It was not clear if Wortham had a lawyer, and police declined to say if he gave a statement.

– Associated Press