A federal jury believes the 1989 prosecution of Gary Sheets for securities fraud may have been sparked by excerpts from his dead wife's diary quoted in the book "A Gathering of Saints," according to one juror.
Juror Christina Lott said the criminal prosecution of Sheets and the lengthy trial were part of the suffering for which the jury compensated him when it awarded him $650,000 in his lawsuit against Salt Lake County.Sheets was indicted two months after the book came out, she said. "Who is to say he wouldn't have been indicted anyway, but that was a factor in our decision."
A jury acquitted Sheets of the charges in April 1989.
Sheets was back in court this week, this time as the plaintiff. He sued Salt Lake County and county investigator Michael George for violating his privacy by giving author Robert Lindsey excerpts from Kathy Sheets' diary.
Gary Sheets turned the diary over to the police shortly after Kathy Sheets was murdered in 1985.
Kent Linebaugh, Gary Sheets attorney, told jurors the federal government's case against Sheets relied heavily on one particular diary excerpt included in the book.
U.S. District Judge Bruce Jenkins instructed Linebaugh part way through the trial to drop that argument unless Linebaugh intended to put federal prosecutors on the stand to verify Linebaugh's claim.
Although Linebaugh did drop the argument, that claim stayed with the jury, Lott said.
Lott spoke about her part in Thursday's verdict after learning that county officials and media attorneys had criticized the jury's decision.
"I felt so good about our decision. I knew we had made the right decision," she said. The subsequent criticism upset her.
Claims that the award was too high also angered her. Many jurors wanted to give Sheets far more than $650,000, she said.
"There were some who didn't want to give him very much and there were others who wanted to give him a lot more. The $650,000 figure turned out to be very close to the average.
"So when we voted on it, everyone felt that was a fair amount to give him," she said.
Jurors deliberated for four hours before concluding that George and the county had violated Sheets' privacy. Sheets fingered George as the one who gave Lindsey the excerpts even though several county and city employees had either excerpts from, full copies of or access to the diary.
The county's attorney stressed how many others could have given Lindsey the excerpts. But the jury believed George had done it.
"We didn't think Michael George was the only one who gave him the excerpts, but we thought he was one of the ones," Lott said. "The fact that he called Robert Lindsey and said, `I'm afraid I was the one who gave you the notes from the diary,' was a factor. (Mr. Linebaugh) said that was a soft confession. I think that played a big part in our decision."
George made that statement in a phone call to Lindsey a few years ago. George called Lindsey after reading in the newspaper that Lindsey couldn't remember who had given him the diary excerpts.
In a deposition, Lindsey said he didn't remember who gave him the excerpts.
The county's casual attitude toward the case also impacted the jury, Lott said. Jurors "very much" believed the county didn't care about the case, she said. Some county officials who testified seemed indifferent.
But Sheets' testimony and the written words of his dead wife struck them. When the jury was sequestered, several jurors read the diary, Lott said.
Kathy Sheets' description of her husband painted his character for the jury. "From what we could tell, he was really a good person," Lott said. The diary made it clear that Gary Sheets was well thought of by the community.
The diary excerpts printed in "A Gathering of Saints" and Sheets' subsequent criminal trial would inevitably damage that reputation in some way, she said.
Jurors tried to compensate Sheets for that damage.