BLOOMINGTON - Attorneys for Jeffrey Pelo offered 100 reasons Thursday why the former cop should receive a new trial on charges that he sexually assaulted four women. | Pelo special section | Flick: Pelo 'only kidding' about being jail bad-boy

Pelo was convicted June 18 of raping four women between 2002 and 2005 and stalking a fifth woman for a year starting in 2005. A McLean County jury found Pelo guilty on all 35 counts related to the assaults that took place in the women's Bloomington residences.

In his motion asking for a reversal of the convictions or a new trial, defense lawyer Michael Rosenblat contends the jury convicted Pelo "despite the fact that absolutely no physical evidence linked defendant to any of these sexual assaults, that physical evidence recovered from the crime scenes pointed to a person other than defendant having been the perpetrator of these crimes, and that the physical descriptions of the attackers given by the complaining witnesses' varied widely in age, weight, and eye characteristics."

Calls to the McLean County State's Attorney's office for comment on the defense motion were not immediately returned to The Pantagraph. An Aug. 12 sentencing hearing is set for Pelo. After his trial, prosecutors said the consecutive sentences he's eligible to receive could mean a lifetime sentence for the former Bloomington police sergeant.

In its post-trial motion, the defense argued Associate Judge Robert Freitag erred in allowing testimony from police and other witnesses concerning allegations that Pelo may have stalked women other than the five victims named in charges.

In rulings before the trial, Freitag agreed with prosecutors that evidence Pelo checked the license plates of young women not involved in criminal activity was relevant to the case.

Pornographic material seized from Pelo's home computers was prejudicial and should not have been shown to the jury, Rosenblat argued in the post-trial motions. The defense also argued that more than 40 items of evidence, including guns, gloves, rope and ski masks owned by Pelo, should not have been allowed at the trial.

The judge's decision to bar defense testimony from an expert in eyewitness identification was cited by Rosenblat as a violation of Pelo's constitutional rights to present a defense. Allowing the trial to take place in McLean County denied Pelo a fair trial, said Rosenblat.

The state's insistence that Pelo's wife, Rickielee Pelo, testify about conversations she had with her husband violated spousal and attorney client privilege, said Rosenblat.

Comments posted on Pantagraph.com regarding the trial were cited by Pelo's lawyer as evidence that one juror may have felt unreasonable pressure to reach a verdict. The comments indicated that the lengthy trial was a burden on the juror's personal life.