But after a jury acquitted the first group of defendants on all charges, prosecutors in January dropped charges against 129 other defendants, saying they’d instead focus on a “core group” of 59 defendants they said were most responsible for the destruction. Since then, one defendant took a guilty plea and charges against 10 others were dropped last week because prosecutors withheld evidence. With the not guilty verdict in Webber’s case, 47 defendants still face felony counts. April Downs, a lawyer representing Webber, told HuffPost after the verdict that she believes the government should never have brought a case against her client. Just as the case went to jury, one of panel’s members wrote a note to the judge saying that someone had written “Google jury nullification” in a bathroom stall.

Source: Huffington Post June 04, 2018 18:33 UTC