Former Police Sergeant Jeff Pelo Rape Trial Update

Former Bloomington, Illinois police sergeant Jeff Pelo, 43, was convicted on Wednesday, June 18, 2008 of raping four women and stalking another.  All-in-all, Pelo was found guilty on 35 counts from the various cases in which he'd been charged, including 25 counts of aggravated sexual assault.  Two charges were dropped during the course of the lengthy trial.  Pelo cried when the verdict was read, and his wife ran out of the courtroom in an emotional outburst.  Although she later apologized and said that she feels badly for the victims in this case, Pelo's wife nonetheless stood behind her husband and again professed his innocence and insisted that the authorities had arrested and convicted "the wrong man."

Defense attorney Michael Rosenblat also professed his belief in his client's innocence, and indicated that he would likely appeal.  He said that he might argue that the judge should not have allowed jurors to view the violent pornography, some of which showed unwilling sexual encounters at gunpoint, found on Pelo's home computer. The type of pornography preferred by Pelo was irrelevant, Rosenblat said.  Rosenblat indicated that another point of appeal could lie in the fact that the defense was not allowed to place an expert witness on the stand to provide testimony regarding the reliability of eyewitness identification.

Three of the victims had chosen Pelo's image out of a photo lineup.  Rosenblat had argued, however, that there were discrepancies in the victims' descriptions of their attacker, and that the descriptions had varied widely.  Rosenblat said that the reason the descriptions varied widely was because the attacks had been committed by different people. One woman said that her attacker had been in his early twenties.

One victim testified that she had been...

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