Adelphia jury completes week without verdict

A federal jury on Friday finished its first week of deliberations without reaching a verdict in the securities fraud trial of Adelphia Communications Corp. founder John Rigas and three other former executives.

The jury, after an 18-week trial, will resume deliberations next week over whether John Rigas, his sons Timothy and Michael, and another executive, Michael Mulcahey, conspired to cheat investors and looted the company to buy stock for themselves and fund extravagant lifestyles.

Prosecutors have charged the four former executives with multiple counts of wire fraud, bank fraud, securities fraud and conspiracy.

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Jurors, who have asked for dozens of exhibits from the trial, reappeared in the courtroom on Friday to hear a taped replay of an Adelphia earnings conference call on March, 27, 2003.

On the tape, a Merrill Lynch analyst can be heard asking about $2.3 billion of off-balance sheet loans at Adelphia -- loans that eventually helped drive the cable company into bankruptcy.

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"That's an awful lot of debt that is not on the consolidated balance sheet," the analyst said, according to the tape. "It would be helpful to understand what's supporting that debt outside of Adelphia."

Timothy Rigas responds by telling the analyst that Adelphia is "very comfortable" it can pay off the debt. "But we will try to see if we can't give you some more clarity on that in the upcoming, see if we can't give you a little more comfort there."

In June 2002, just months after that conference call with analysts and investors, Adelphia filed for bankruptcy.