Griesa retrial delay rejected

Some jurors in the Joseph Griesa trial on sexual abuse charges have blogged about how they reached a verdict by agreeing to convict him on some charges if he wasn't found guilty of other allegations — "horse-trading" that a jury is not supposed to do, his new attorney says.

Attorney Kenneth Rosenfeld raised the issue during a Friday hearing in Yuba County Superior Court on the defense request to vacate the scheduled Nov. 10 start of a second trial on charges for which the jury failed to reach verdicts.

Rosenfeld called the case complex and "stranger than fiction" — he said in court that novelist "John Grisham couldn't make this stuff up" — and requiring the review of trial transcripts and thousands of pages of documents.

But visiting Judge John Quinlen said "It was Mr. Griesa's idea to retain new counsel" — and declined to vacate the trial date.

A jury in June failed to reach a verdict on five felony charges against Griesa and involving a girl, who is now 18. The charges against former Marysville towing company manager Griesa are indecent exposure, intimidating a victim, sexual battery, false imprisonment and assault with a deadly weapon.

Griesa was found guilty of concealing two young runaway girls from their parents and failure to pay taxes for two girls who worked for him. He was also found guilty of annoying or molesting a youth by sending her sexual text messages.

He was found not guilty of charges that involved three girls and included sexual battery, sexual penetration and oral copulation.

The courtroom Friday was split between Griesa supporters, some of whom had worn buttons backing him, and more than a dozen people who had had signs urging he be sent to prison.