Defense attorneys point to growing mistrust of police for jury deadlock
Prosecutors fail to sway 3 of 6 jurors into another conviction; defense claims ‘moral victory.’
WEST PALM BEACH — In the latest twist to the stranger-than-fiction saga of Dalia Dippolito’s alleged plot to kill her husband, a judge declared a mistrial Wednesday after jurors in her second trial announced they were hopelessly split in deciding whether she was guilty.
Dippolito, 34, settled into the news with hugs from her crying mother and a confident smile as she stood behind her attorneys in a post-trial news conference. Her defense team said it relishes the chance at a new trial next year to again defend the woman who once told a fake hitman she was “5,000 percent sure” she wanted her husband dead.
Prosecutors, whose much dialed-back Michael Dippolito: “All she had to do was divorce me,”
Prosecutors say they will take the case to trial for a third time.
Defense attorneys could renew request for a change of venue. The next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 6. Dalia Dippolito remains on house arrest. WEST PALM BEACH — Standing outside the Palm Beach County Courthouse, attorney Brian Claypool choked back tears on Wednesday as he recalled the heavy odds he faced when he agreed to help Dalia Dippolito beat a charge of hiring a hitman to kill her husband.
“Not one person in America believed we had a chance in this case,” he said, holding up an index finger while tears filled his eyes.
Defying naysayers, the California attorney pulled off a coup — he persuaded three of the six jurors to acquit the 34-year-old Boynton Beach woman, forcing Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley to declare a mistrial. Claypool, along with West Palm Beach attorney Greg In an unprecedented examination of autopsy and other death records, The Palm Beach Post found that 216 people died in 2015 from heroin-related overdoses in Palm Beach County. The epidemic is more lethal than traffic crashes or homicides.