Mark Shelnutt was hunched over the defense table, his hands tightly clasped.
It was 2:32 Wednesday afternoon.
For almost 15 minutes, Shelnutt sat motionless as he waited on the verdict from the federal jury on 36 drug, money laundering, bribery and false statement charges.
Once in the jury box, the jury foreman handed the verdict form to U.S. District Court Judge Clay Land.
Land thumbed through the document in the quiet courtroom, which was filled with Shelnutt supporters and some of the law enforcement agents who helped build the case against him.
After about 45 seconds, Land acknowledged the form was in order.
Shelnutt, still seated, held the hand of his attorney Tom Withers, a man who passionately argued for more than a week that the U.S. government had wrongly accused and charged Shelnutt of crimes connected to Torrance Hill’s drug organization.
FBI Special Agent Todd Kalish, who investigated Shelnutt, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Mel Hyde, who was named in the attempted bribery charge, sat on the right side of the courtroom. Their faces showed no expression.
At 2:45, Land began to read.
“Count One, conspiracy to launder money,” the judge said. “Not guilty.”
“Count Two, aiding and abetting a conspiracy to distribute cocaine. Not guilty.”
“Count Five, money laundering. Not guilty.”
Then the judge’s words, cadence and diction took on a lyrical quality. The chorus, time and again, was “Not guilty.”
Thirty six times Land read a charge and followed it with not guilty.
By the time Land was finished, Shelnutt’s supporters, a combination of family and friends, many of them connected to St. Luke United Methodist Church, were cheering.
Land, who had openly questioned the strength of the government’s case since Friday, ordered calm.
“No, no,” the judge said. “Wait until the jury is dismissed.”
As the jury left, Shelnutt turned to his supporters with tears on his face.
“I feel good,” he almost whispered in answer to a question shouted at him.
Minutes later some of Shelnutt’s backers literally danced out of the federal courthouse in downtown Columbus. Then many of them gathered around as Shelnutt and his attorney answered questions from reporters.
Shelnutt said he was overwhelmed.
“I said from the start, we were going to try our case in the courtroom, and that’s what we did,” Shelnutt said. “We believed in the system and those jurors who we wanted to hear our story and we are thankful for them. Justice was done today.”
Reaction
The government’s case, made by the Drug Enforcement Agency, FBI and IRS, began to unravel last week when Land dismissed a witness tampering charge at the prosecutor’s request. Three more charges — one of making a false statement to federal agents and two of failing to file proper financial forms for transactions of more than $10,000 — were dismissed before the jury got the case Tuesday afternoon.
Patricia Davis of Butler was on the jury.
“We all wanted to make sure we made the right decision,” Davis said as she left the courthouse.
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