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Jury has a question during Pelo deliberations
By Edith Brady-Lunny
eblunny@pantagraph.com
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UPDATED 4:30 p.m. BLOOMINGTON -- Jurors informed the court that they would like to have a question answered late Tuesday afternoon in the rape and stalking trial of former police officer Jeff Pelo. | AUDIO SLIDESHOW: Week 6 recap | Special section

Judge Robert Freitag was waiting for Pelo's attorney, Michael Rosenblat, to return to the courtroom before reading the question and deciding how to instruct the jury.

The jury has been deliberating in the case since Monday afternoon.

They boarded a bus at 9:30 p.m. Monday after about six hours of deliberation and the sequestered jurors returned Tuesday morning to continue deliberations.

The jury will decide if the former sergeant is guilty of raping four women and stalking a fifth between 2002 and 2005.

In closing arguments to the jury on Monday, a prosecutor said Pelo is an evil man who was unable to stop himself from stalking and sexually assaulting women.

Defense lawyer Michael Rosenblat told the jury Pelo is the victim of overzealous police work and unfortunate circumstances.

The panel of six men and six women will determine which portrait of Pelo is most accurate as they deliberate on 35 counts accusing Pelo of aggravated criminal sexual assault, residential burglary, stalking and home invasion. The charges span four years, beginning in 2002, when Pelo allegedly stalked a woman and raped four others in their east side Bloomington homes.

Chief Felony Prosecutor Mark Messman said in a closing argument lasting 75 minutes that he could not offer an explanation for the crimes he believes Pelo committed.

“Evil came into his heart, took up residence there, and he couldn’t get rid of it,” said Messman.

Messman reviewed the month of testimony the jury heard concerning Pelo’s habit of running license plates checks on young women, the former cop’s taste for violent pornography and his desire to live the fantasies he viewed in the pornographic images.

“For those minutes or hours he’s in there, these women are going to be his girlfriend,” Messman said of the alleged attacks by Pelo.

Rosenblat contends that authorities homed in on Pelo as a suspect shortly after he was stopped June 10, 2006, by a police officer outside a woman’s home on Andy Court.

“The police wrongfully believed that a sophisticated criminal was involved in these assaults. The police are not willing to admit they made a mistake. They left that up to you,” the defense lawyer told the jury.

Pelo’s lawyer pointed to the results of DNA tests and fingerprint identifications performed on evidence collected at the crimes scenes.

“All of this evidence points to someone else who committed these crimes,” said Rosenblat.

Rosenblat also argued that the physical descriptions of the attacker offered by the women differed in several details, including ages ranging from the 20s to 40s.

Messman pointed to evidence he said proves the 18-year police veteran had the motive, means and opportunity to commit the crimes. Common elements of the assaults, including the sudden appearance of a masked man in the middle of the night who bound his victims and negotiated some of his actions with them, shows that one person was responsible for the assaults, said the prosecutor.

Extra chairs were brought into the courtroom to accommodate the overflow crowd for closing remarks. Two of the alleged rape victims and the woman who was allegedly stalked by Pelo were in the front row for the final arguments.

Jurors arrived at the Law and Justice Center with suitcases in preparation for their sequestration at a hotel at the end of each day’s deliberations.

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Reader comments on this story - 17 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

myself wrote on Jun 17, 2008 7:33 PM:

" Thanks sparkie. Hey chitown, read your own post and take a piece of your own advice. I bet you couldn't handle the "big city" that's why you post on our paper's site. Go back to chi and get a real life. "

sparkie wrote on Jun 17, 2008 6:23 PM:

" Chi-Town....
I guess you are wasting your time too Chi-Town, because your comment really doesn't matter either. If you would bother to read this section...it is titled "Add your own comments" If you don't like to read the comments on here....a simple solution would be....DON'T READ THEM. I can't imagine why you are wasting your time reading this comment section anyway, if you are going to have that attitude ! "

pseudo-intellectual wrote on Jun 17, 2008 5:38 PM:

" If we still had prayer in the schools, SpeakerOfTruth would be in a monastery, or a convent. "

myself wrote on Jun 17, 2008 5:35 PM:

" Hey speaker: Don't see you commenting on gay marriage. Do you think prayer in school would help here too? Consider 2 priests were some of the first to get married under this new commandment. "

sparkie wrote on Jun 17, 2008 4:03 PM:

" Hahaha the Ten Commandments posted at the McLean County Courthouse. You have got to be kidding me. "

SpeakerOfTruth wrote on Jun 17, 2008 3:38 PM:

" None of this would have ever happened if they still had prayer in schools and the 10 Commandments posted at the courthouse. "

MISSterious wrote on Jun 17, 2008 1:00 PM:

" JoJo: Both, it was in the paper AND you missed it. The rapes were in the paper, but the Law Enforcement officials worked very hard to convince everyone, via media, that there was absolutely no serial rapist in our town, and so we need not be worried about getting raped. But of course, once they find a person to lay all those charges on, we suddenly have a serial rapist. Now, which police statement are we to believe...? "

Anon Comment wrote on Jun 17, 2008 12:42 PM:

" Jojo...EXACTLY! I'd heard from my friends who live on the far east side that this was going on, but that the police were denying it was happening. Then, suddenly, it became true with this arrest. Funny how the citizens knew more than the police were willing to share. While the police had their reasons (not creating panic, denial, whatever), a general warning sent to the neighborhood watch groups would have been nice. "

who are you people wrote on Jun 17, 2008 9:36 AM:

" Can someone who believe Pelo is innocent please explain the piles of "coinicdences" to me? Why was he outisde that house in the middle of the night and said he was "house shopping for his mother-in-law"...c'mon. Why did he have information about the victims and their families, that was looked up on police computers, on his home computer? Why pornography depiciting a man in uniform performing rape? What are the possible explanations? If the pile of circumstantial evidence stack up high enough it paints a pretty clear picture. If yout keep baking pies and they keep getting eaten off your counter, you don't have to see me eat it. If you catch me outside your house in the middle of the night right after you baked a pie and I have all you recipes on my computer at home and I dream about eating pie....guess what...I STOLE YOUR PIE!! "

jojo wrote on Jun 17, 2008 7:58 AM:

" You know, what frustrates me more than anything in this case is that I don't remember ever reading about a serial rapist in B/N until Mr. Pelo was arrested. Was that ever in the paper, and I just missed it? I have daughters that live and go to school there, and I feel like the police should have made an effort to make residents of the area aware of something like that. "

Stoney wrote on Jun 17, 2008 7:51 AM:

" Why do the jurors have to go to 9:30 p.m. ? I assume they would get paid overtime just like McLean County employees. "

sick wrote on Jun 16, 2008 8:40 PM:

" Amen worlds smallest violin "

sparkie wrote on Jun 16, 2008 6:49 PM:

" world's smallest violin....I agree that was a reach downward that I think only Messman himself could lower to. He made it sound almost like Pelo was taken over by some evil force and couldn't stop himself. I am not convinced that Pelo is not being railroaded by his own fellow workers rushing to judgement. The prosecution has pretty much made this trial an embarressment for McLean County. Whatever the outcome, this was sloppy, so sloppy that I doubt the real honest truth will ever be known. If Pelo gets out of this ....I agree he should sue !!! I guess we will all have to wait and see the outcome of this. "Zeva" I agree about making judgement calls...I HAVE been to most of this trial, and I don't think there is enough for a conviction. "

Occam wrote on Jun 16, 2008 5:20 PM:

" Let justice be served. "

Zeva wrote on Jun 16, 2008 4:25 PM:

" How can anyone say if someone is guilty or not, since your not in the courtroom to hear ALL the evidence. I don't know if he is or not, because the only one that can give a fair verdict is the people hearing all the testimony and viewing the evidence, that being the jury. Please don't convict someone with out all that knowledge. "

MISSterious wrote on Jun 16, 2008 4:16 PM:

" Pastafarian: thanks for clearing that up!! Buy me lunch tomorrow? "

Pastafarian wrote on Jun 16, 2008 3:35 PM:

" To anyone that might read this later and wonder what I drank for lunch, someone commented that this trial was a joke. "
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