A Cobb County jury on Friday found former Glock Inc. CEO Paul Jannuzzo guilty of stealing a pistol and conspiring with another former executive to skim millions from the international gun manufacturer.
A sentencing hearing will be scheduled for later this month. Jannuzzo, 55, could face up to 30 years in prison for the theft and racketeering charges for which he was indicted in 2009. Defense attorney Robert Citronberg declined to comment, except to say he will appeal the verdict.
Jannuzzo did not noticeably react to the jury's decision, which came after seven days of testimony. His two sisters who traveled from New Jersey to attend the trial, and his wife, who flew in from Amsterdam, all wept upon hearing his fate and left the courtroom without talking to reporters. His 80-year-old mother, who left with them, seemed stunned.
No representative from Glock was in court on the last day of trial. Prosecutors never called the company's octogenarian founder, Gaston Glock of Austria, to testify because they said he had suffered a stroke. Glock is based in Austria, but the trial was being held in Cobb County because the North American headquarters for Glock is in Smyrna.
Jurors deliberated Friday for five hours and 40 minutes before returning their verdict. Throughout the day, the jurors asked several questions that indicated they might be wavering on some of the charges.
They asked if they needed to find Jannuzzo guilty of all the acts alleged in the single racketeering charge against him, or if they could find him guilty of just a few. Superior Court Judge LaTain Kell instructed jurors that they must unanimously find Jannuzzo guilty of at least two of the nine instances of racketeering listed in the indictment, or else find him not guilty of racketeering.
Prosecutors said Jannuzzo conspired with another former Glock executive, Dunwoody lawyer Peter Manown, to divert millions of dollars from the company between 1991 and 2003 using cloned bank accounts, forged documents, and fraudulently obtained loans.
Manown, who profited the most from the partnership, pleaded guilty to three counts of theft in 2008 and was sentenced to 10 years on probation, with no jail time. In exchange for the plea, Manown agreed to provide prosecutors with a statement about the embezzlement he said that he and Jannuzzo engaged in.
Jurors also asked the judge for a copy of the statute of limitations, which had been at issue in the trial. The statute governs how much time may lapse between a crime being committed and prosecution. The statute of limitations is five years on racketeering, and four years on the gun theft.
Glock brought the case to Smyrna police in 2007, four years after Jannuzzo quit in 2003.
However, company officials claimed they did not know Jannuzzo had stolen the gun until 2007, when police officers who responded to a domestic dispute at Jannuzzo's condo took it into evidence, checked the serial number, and found that the company had reported it stolen to Smyrna Police.
Earlier this week, Jannuzzo's defense attorneys called to the stand Kevin Connor, the lawyer who replaced Jannuzzo at Glock. He testified that Jannuzzo notified him two weeks after quitting that he had the pistol and several other guns, but the company never took action to retrieve it.
Jannuzzo was indicted in 2008. The case was reindicted in 2009 so the District Attorney's Office could add a charge of obstructing law enforcement, based upon their assertion that Jannuzzo lied to Smyrna Police during questioning.
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