Case Goes to Jury in Ex-Schools Chief's Retrial

This from the Washington Post:

The witness list was virtually unchanged. The judge and lwyers were the same. So, too, was much of the evidence, as former Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby, whose last trial ended in a hung jury, was tried again on public corruption charges.

Yesterday, after a familiar round of closing arguments, the case was turned over to the participants whose presence set the current prosecution apart from the first one: the jurors.

In closing arguments at U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, the prosecution and the defense drew competing portraits of Hornsby, who resigned in 2005 and was indicted the following year. The government depicted Hornsby as a liar and a cheat, and the defense cast him as a hard-charging educator determined to do right by his students.

"Andre Hornsby was paid $250,000 a year by the people of Prince George's County, plus a car, plus a bonus," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stuart A. Berman said. "But that wasn't enough."

"He's aggressive," Hornsby's attorney, Robert C. Bonsib, told the jurors. "Maybe he ruffles feathers, but he ruffles them for the right reasons."

Hornsby, 54, is accused of taking kickbacks in exchange for steering school system contracts to his girlfriend and a longtime business associate. Jurors in his first trial deadlocked in November, and prosecutors brought the case a second time. ...