DENVER, COLORADO -- The Department of Justice announced that Benny Bailey of Denver, Colorado, formerly a Deputy United States Marshal for the District of Colorado, was indicted today by a federal grand jury in a two-count indictment charging him with perjury and false statements. If convicted, Bailey faces on each count up to five years in prison and a fine of not more than $250,000.

According to the indictment, Bailey helped supervise the jury in the 1997 trial of Timothy McVeigh, who had been charged with bombing the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. After the McVeigh trial concluded in June, 1997, Bailey became involved in an intimate relationship with an alternate juror from the trial. In 1998 the trial court and, subsequently, defense counsel for McVeigh, received anonymous facsimiles alleging that Bailey and the alternate juror had an intimate relationship during the McVeigh trial and that Bailey attempted to influence the outcome of the trial by persuading this juror of McVeigh's guilt. As a result of these anonymous facsimiles, the U.S. Marshals Service and the McVeigh trial judge investigated whether or not any improprieties had occurred between Bailey and any of the McVeigh jurors.


The baliff in charge of the McVeigh jurors is thought to have an a relationship with one of the jurors WHILE THE TRIAL WAS GOING ON. This might just be a love story, or it might be the fed's way of learning about jury deliberations as they were going on. If it's the latter, then ... well, the implications are clear.