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Jurors deliberated nearly three days before finding Freddie Taylor, 37, guilty of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, first-degree murder, accessory after the fact to the murder, and tampering with a witness. He faces life in prison when U.S. District Judge John M. Roll sentences him Dec. 11.
The jury in Taylor's first trial deadlocked in April after almost a week of deliberations.
Prosecutors allege that Michael Waggoner and Taylor killed Alzinnia Keyes because she had given federal agents information on crack cocaine dealers in the area. She was shot in front of more than 20 witnesses and died 12 days later.
"Mr. Taylor and his family are of course terribly disappointed," said Taylor's attorney, Ralph Ellinwood.
Ellinwood maintained that Keyes was killed by dealers who didn't want a known snitch moving across the street from their crack house. The real killers falsely blamed Taylor and Waggoner, he said.
Jurors sent a note Tuesday saying they were deadlocked, but the judge instructed them to continue, Ellinwood said.
"The government's case is so incredibly weak and built on terrible witnesses. These are not believable people. To me, it's a little frightening they didn't just acquit him," he said.
In February, another jury convicted Waggoner, the alleged gunman, of murder, conspiracy to commit murder and tampering with a witness.
Assistant U.S. Attorney SeanChapman said Taylor and Waggoner grew up in the neighborhood and were friends with a man he described as a crack cocaine dealer. "Basically they killed Keyes to undermine Terile Williams' federal prosecution because they knew she had acted as an informant against them," he said.
Williams was arrested before the shooting, on Keyes' assistance as an informant, and later sentenced to 30 months in prison on drug charges, Chapman said. Keyes served three years in prison on drug-related charges before she was arrested by South Tucson police in January 1998 and agreed to inform on others for the DEA.
*Contact Inger Sandal at 573-4241 or isandal@azstarnet.com.
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