Associated Press
NEW YORK — Jurors are at an increasingly angry standstill on rape charges against an off-duty New York City police officer.
Defense lawyer Ephraim Savitt says jurors told the court late Tuesday morning they remain stuck on the rape charges against Michael Pena. They said Monday they’d reached a verdict on several other sex-attack charges. That partial decision hasn’t been announced.
Savitt says Tuesday’s note warned that deliberations were getting very contentious.
The note itself wasn’t immediately available.
The woman testified that Pena grabbed her off the street, forced her into an Upper Manhattan apartment courtyard and raped her at gunpoint.
Savitt says Pena acknowledges attacking the woman but never had intercourse with her.
Jurors first said Monday they were hung up on the rape charges. They were told then to keep deliberating.
Copyright 2012 Associated Press