WASHINGTON (AP) - Jurors reached a verdict Tuesday in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, a former White House aide accused of lying and obstructing an investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. The verdict will be read at 12 noon EST in the courtroom where jurors heard 19 witnesses during the five-week trial. The verdict came on the 10th day of deliberations. The announcement was made by Randall Samborn, a spokesman for special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
If found guilty on all five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI, Libby faces up to 30 years in prison, although it is expected to be far less because of federal sentencing guidelines.
Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the only person charged in the case, which grew out of an investigation into the 2003 leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.
Plame is married to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who emerged in mid-2003 as an outspoken critic of the Bush administration's case for the Iraq war.
Fitzgerald says Libby learned about Plame from Cheney and other officials in June 2003 and relayed it to reporters. Libby's defense team argued that Libby recalled his conversations to the best of his ability. Any inaccuracies he made to the FBI or a federal grand jury were the result of a faulty memory, attorneys said.
