Turner man’s appeal rejected by law court

PORTLAND – The state supreme court Friday rejected the latest appeal by a former Turner businessman who defrauded customers of his classic truck business of more than $30,000.

In seeking review of his 1996 conviction, Anthony Casella, 55, argued that his due process rights were violated because jurors were not required to reach unanimous agreement on which of 19 transactions constituted theft.

One of the two counts against Casella included 19 transactions involving 19 different customers in a scheme that took in an aggregated sum of more than $5,000.

The law at the time said the total amount netted through one scheme or course of conduct may be aggregated as a single charge of theft. At the time, theft of more than $5,000 was a Class B crime.

Casella claimed that a 1999 U.S. Supreme Court ruling created a new constitutional right to have the jury unanimously find which specific violations he committed.

The Supreme Judicial Court disagreed, concluding that the decision does not require all juries, state and federal, to unanimously agree about the specific underlying conduct that makes up its ultimate verdict.

Casella, who was found guilty of felony theft and negotiating a worthless instrument, was sentenced to 12 years – a prison term prosecutors called the longest ever meted out to anyone convicted of a white-collar crime in Maine.