PEORIA, Ill. (AP) — A jury’s paperwork mix-up resulted in a central Illinois judge announcing a not guilty verdict in a murder trial, only to inform the defendant minutes later that he had in fact been convicted
Fifty-five-year-old Micha Gordon was celebrating Thursday after a Peoria County judge spoke the words “not guilty” in announcing the jury’s apparent verdict on a first-degree murder charge. But the Journal Star of Peoria reports it turned out the jurors filled out the wrong form, and after about five minutes, the judge read a new verdict: guilty. Gordon will be sentenced March 24 in the August 2021, stabbing death in Peoria of 37-year-old Rolando Westbrook.
