A Los Angeles judge declared a mistrial and dismissed grand theft fees Tuesday against a former organization manager of Marvel Comics mastermind Stan Lee.
Superior Courtroom Decide George Lomeli dismissed the charges from Keya Morgan, who was accused of thieving from Lee, when a jury was deadlocked 11-1 in favor of acquittal just after two times of deliberations and a 2 1/2-7 days trial.
Lomeli mentioned he was stepping in to apparent Morgan of 3 felony counts of grand theft from an elder “in the passions of justice,” in accordance to Range.
“My client and I have used 4 decades proving his innocence and nowadays we prevailed,” Morgan’s attorney Alex Kessel stated in an electronic mail to The Related Press.
Prosecutors had alleged that Morgan, 41, stole much more than $220,000 in proceeds from a few memorabilia signings from Lee about 6 months before Lee died in 2018. Morgan was arrested the subsequent yr. First rates of elder abuse and wrong imprisonment versus Morgan were dropped long right before the trial.
The prosecution argued in the course of the trial that Morgan had preyed on Lee when Lee was in psychological drop in the very last months of his daily life, and acted devoid of authority on his behalf.
Kessel argued that the lacking money in fact went to Lee’s daughter and heir J.C. Lee, who was a witness during the trial.
The proceedings were being mostly overshadowed by the simultaneous trials of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and actor Danny Masterson, which have been heading on at the same time with Morgan’s in the exact same hallway of a downtown LA courthouse.
An just after-hrs electronic mail despatched to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Place of work trying to get comment was not straight away returned.
Lee, the imaginative dynamo who co-made people like Spider-Gentleman, the Superb 4 and the Amazing Hulk for Marvel and built beloved cameos in the motion pictures that highlighted his creations, died in November of 2018 at age 95.
