Money Fraud

In the money laundering trial of Tom DeLay a lot of stuff was presented to 12 people whose job it was to put it all together in some semblance of order and then come to a decision on whether a law has been broken.

That’s a tall order for 12 people who are probably unaware of how this case has raged on for 5 years now (or they would never have been allowed on the panel). But now we see that the jury, or maybe just one juror, one confused juror, one confused and brain-addled juror, one confused brain-addled but vocal juror, wants a term defined for them that defies definition because it really isn’t a term at all.

The jury wanted Judge Pat Priest to define for them the term “money fraud.”

Money fraud.

So I googled it. And no, there is no standalone term money fraud. 

There are all sorts of fraud. There’s mail fraud, there’s election fraud, but there is no such thing as money fraud.

The judge was a little put out by the question it seems. It appears that the jury has left the trail and has decided to try its own case, coming up with new terms like money fraud in the process. So it comes as no surprise that the judge sent back to them this rather tersely worded reply:

“I'm afraid you may be getting away from the decisions you must make.”

Gee, do ya think?

This may turn out to be the most anticlimactic trial whose pre-trial positioning I have been following for 5 years now. We finally get to trial and it finally goes to the jury only to find out that the jury is dysfunctional. Probably because of one lone juror.

I smell a rat.