BLOOMINGTON - Jeffrey Pelo has been held in jail longer than anyone else who has awaited trial in McLean County. | Special section: Court documents, audio, story archive | Audio slideshow: Inside the Story interview with Pantagraph reporter | Trial long overdue for victims and Pelo's family | Timeline of events

The 43-year-old former Bloomington police sergeant has spent almost two years behind bars - unable to raise the $100,000 needed to get out while he braces himself for the start of a May 12 trial on multiple charges that he raped four young women over a three-year period beginning in 2002.

The nature of the case and the fact that Pelo has been in custody so long make the trial one of the most anticipated criminal cases in recent memory. The paperwork alone is evidence of the complexity and scope of the case.

McLean County's chief felony prosecutor Mark Messman considers the Pelo case among the biggest he has handled in his 10 years as a prosecutor in terms of the sheer volume of materials compiled, and the length of time the case has been pending.

Michael Rosenblat

Discovery materials filed by Messman and his co-counsel, assistant state's attorney Sandra Thompson, include almost 10,000 pages of documents. Pelo's defense lawyer Michael Rosenblat said he has never dealt with such a formidable stack of discovery materials in a criminal case.

The state "is trying to overwhelm the defense by tendering that many pages of documents," Rosenblat contends.

The prosecution's list of about 500 potential witnesses also exceeds Rosenblat's experience.

"It's unusual to have this many witnesses in this type of criminal case," he said.

Recently, prosecutors told Associate Judge Robert Freitag, who will preside over the trial, that the number of witnesses likely will range between 50 and 150. The trial, beginning with jury selection, is expected to last about four weeks.

Mark Messman

"My experience is that there sometimes are 11th hour stipulations" that eliminate the need to call some witnesses, said Messman.

The Pelo case, before and after he was charged, also has been one of the most widely reported stories in Central Illinois in many years.

The Pantagraph has published at least 100 stories about the case.

Former McLean County prosecutor Stephanie Wong said the public's interest is understandable.

"I think it's human nature. What he (Pelo) is accused of doing is the polar opposite of what he committed his professional life to doing as a sworn police officer," said Wong.

No one disputes the high public interest, which is a cause of concern for Rosenblat, who will argue at the trial that a case of mistaken identity has landed the wrong man in jail all this time.

A defense motion to move the trial outside McLean County because of the media coverage has been denied by Freitag.

At the time, the judge said potential jurors will be questioned about their knowledge of the case and any opinions they may have formed.

Jurors also will be required to sign an affidavit every day confirming they have avoided all media reports of the trial. Freitag said he has no plans to sequester the panel.

Double life

Prosecutors and police investigators contend Pelo lived a double life - protecting and serving the public by day and sexually assaulting young women at night when he was off-duty.

Pelo was a 17-year veteran of the police force and had achieved the rank of sergeant when he was arrested in June 2006 on charges that he tried to break into a woman's home on Bloomington's east side. Accusations of stalking the same woman followed.

A patrolman stopped Pelo outside the woman's home shortly after midnight on June 10. Pelo said he was looking for possible homes to purchase for his mother-in-law, though the woman's house was not for sale.

As investigators pieced together information in the stalking case, Pelo became a suspect in the unsolved sexual assaults of four women in their homes from December 2002 to January 2005.

A month after the stalking case was filed, a McLean County grand jury indicted Pelo on 35 criminal counts, including 28 charges of aggravated criminal sexual assault and four counts of home invasion.

An FBI profile compiled after the rapes were reported concluded the incidents contained enough similarities that one person could have committed all of the crimes.

It is clear from requests for search warrants filed in Circuit Court that police think Pelo may have used the resources available to him as a police officer to track the young women who allegedly became his victims.

Personal information about the women - all single and in their 20's - may have been collected using law enforcement databases and police reports made by the women regarding other incidents, according to court records.

Items that may have been used in the assaults such as a ski mask, duct tape, and weapons were sought by police during searches of Pelo's former home near Downs. The veteran police officer also had an interest in pornography that included violence against women, according to results of a search of Pelo's home computer.

But the defense contends the wrong man has been in jail for almost two years - that witnesses were wrong when they pointed to Pelo as the rapist.

Faulty descriptions of suspects by well meaning people are common, said Rosenblat.

"People always give a wide range of descriptions of perpetrators," he said. Rosenblat made an unsuccessful attempt to have an eyewitness identification expert talk to the jury about how people identify crime suspects.

Rosenblat argued police incorrectly conducted the identification process by showing the women full-face photographs of suspects.

The rapist's face was covered, he said.

The defense also complained the women were shown photo line-ups a minimum of 18 months after the sexual assaults and 14 months after the stalking case.

That time gap may have affected the women's ability to accurately recall what their assailant looked like, Roseblat argued.

The challenge for both sides in the Pelo case will be to convey their theories in a clear, concise manner that jurors will understand, said Wong.

"They have one shot to present the case to the jury. This is a case that really is going to fall upon the physical evidence that's there - whether it's documents, eyewitness or scientific," she said.

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Attorneys in the Pelo case

For the state: Mark Messman, McLean County's chief felony prosecutor

College: Illinois State University

Law School: John Marshall Law School, 1990

Experience: former defense attorney; with the McLean County State's Attorney's office 10 years

For the defense: Michael Rosenblat, attorney for Jeffrey Pelo

College: University of Illinois-Urbana

Law School: John Marshall Law School, 1985

Experience: former Illinois Assistant Attorney General; currently in private practice in Chicago