In the end, Mel Reynolds was convicted by his own words.
After hearing 18 days of contradictory testimony from the congressman, his accuser and a whole chorus of confusing voices, jurors were most swayed to make their decision by the words Reynolds himself spoke during two secretly recorded telephone conversations.
During their 14 hours of deliberation, the jurors played the tapes over and over again, they said. When they came out Tuesday night, the seven men and five women found Reynolds guilty on two counts of solicitation of child pornography, four counts of obstruction of justice and three counts each of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and criminal sexual assault.
In interviews Tuesday, seven of the jurors painted a picture of a diverse group united in their understanding of the gravity and sensitivity of the case and their determination to decide it fairly.
“We all had apprehension,” said Andrew Venglarchik, a 72-year-old retired administrative manager who lives in Arlington Heights. “It’s not the easiest thing to do-to shoot down a U.S. representative.”
All of them found the tapes, made by accuser Beverly Heard for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, the key evidence in making their decision, they said.
“Without the tapes, we still would be there,” said Dwayner Brown, a 29-year-old receptionist at a Chicago law firm. “The tapes brought everything into perspective.”
During his three days on the stand, Reynolds claimed his conversations with Heard, in which they discussed past sexual encounters and his desire to obtain a pornographic photo of a 15-year-old girl, were just phone-sex fantasies.
But jurors had a hard time believing Reynolds could switch back and forth between fantasy and reality, said juror Patrick King, 29, a student at Northern Illinois University.
They listened carefully to the tapes for varying inflections of Reynolds’ voice, King said, but they could not tell when the congressman switched from fantasy to reality.
He referred to one point during one of the conversations, in which Reynolds talks about having sex with a 15-year-old, and in the next breath says, “How’s your mother?”
“We didn’t think you could go in and out of fantasy like that,” King said. “It didn’t work because the shift from fantasy to reality wasn’t that clear cut.”
“The tapes, we went over them,” agreed juror Jessalyn Cipriani, 24, who lives in Oak Lawn. “We tried to listen to how they spoke and to decide what was imaginary and what was based on fact, and how much he said and how much he would admit to. We tried to look at the whole conversation.”
Also, jurors said, the tapes provided the best way to evaluate conflicting testimony.
“It was a situation where there were two competing stories,” said Brook Dooley, a 21-year-old linguistics student at the University of Chicago. “The best way to go about it was to look at corroborating evidence.”
The tapes, he said, provided “specific references to things that happened. It was really the specific references.”
James Limper, 70, a General Electric Co. retiree, said the jury considered the tapes “time and time and time again.”
“They were crucial for me, though a little hairy for me to listen to,” Limper said as he unpacked his bag in his Wilmette garage.
Jurors said they were also seeking corroborating evidence when they asked to see pornographic photographs taken from Reynolds’ office. They wanted to know how young the women were, some said.
Contrary to what many legal observers predicted, race and gender did not play much of a role in deliberations, although jurors seemed aware of the potential explosiveness of the situation, some said. Of the five women, one is white and four are black. Five of the men are white, and two are black.
“White people on the jury, we approached it very gingerly,” Venglarchik said. “We wanted to make sure we were not jumping to any conclusions. The black jurors didn’t want to approach it (like) `Just because I’m black, I’m not going to sink a brother.’ “
Indeed, jurors decided they didn’t want a white male foreman, Venglarchik said, because they wanted to reflect the jury’s “balance.”
“The white female was too young. And the ladies were not too receptive. Ken (Blackwell) was very personable, very outgoing and social.”
Early on in deliberations, jurors took a number of straw votes to see how they felt about the various charges. None of the votes were unanimous, and the group was split by as much as 9-3 and 8-4 on some of the charges, although some voted undecided, according to Dooley.
The jury decided the child pornography charges first, he said, and several other jurors said those were the easiest to decide.
Mary Lee Moore, a 69-year-old presser for a dry cleaning company, said she was among three jurors, all women, who voted not guilty in the first vote.
Moore, a Chicago resident, said she didn’t know who to believe, but eventually decided Heard’s testimony was more credible.
But overall, jurors were much more mixed in their attitudes toward Beverly Heard.
King said the jury would not have voted to convict Reynolds if the case was based solely on Heard’s testimony. The group agreed, however, that Heard probably did not expect the case to blow up the way it did, he said.
“We never believed that Beverly Heard was a more credible witness than the congressman,” King said.
Limper was more blunt. “She was about as close to a slut as you can get,” he said.
But several jurors expressed more support for the 19-year-old Heard, who had herself asked the jury to find Reynolds innocent, even as she repeated that she had had sex with him.
Cipriani said she didn’t necessarily believe Reynolds was lying, but sided with Heard after listening to all the evidence.
The key moment in the trial came when Heard admitted on the stand that she and Reynolds had sex, Cipriani said.
“She (Heard) was going back and forth. And (then) she said, `You know I feel bad, I don’t want him to go to prison, but I did have sex with him.’ “
She said the number of witnesses supporting Heard’s story helped convince her of Reynolds’ guilt.
Cipriani said the jury understood the case well, and that there was little confusion during deliberations. Still, she said, “It wasn’t an easy decision” sending Reynolds to prison. “I mean, he’s a very intelligent man, he’s very well respected.”
Jurors said they were relieved that the trial had come to an end.
“I’m glad it’s over. I hope I don’t have to go through it again,” Venglarchik said.
Tribune reporters Sue Ellen Christian, Michael Lev, Janita Poe, Louise Kiernan and Cornelia Grumman contributed to this article.
