Update 4:15 p.m.
DETROIT – There is new word from the Ferguson jury tonight.
It's looking like the judge is going to send everyone home for the weekend and resume deliberations next Tuesday. He is also apparently inclined to allow a juror who had a pre-paid vacation that starts on Monday to go on that vacation and the jury will likely proceed with just 11 jurors. There was a note to the judge with a question that made the judge laugh, but we have not heard what that question was.
2:00 p.m.
It's Friday afternoon and the jury remains out deliberating the fate of Bobby Ferguson.
He is the Detroit contractor who is also a close friend of former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick on trial in a bid rigging trial. He is facing eight counts of defrauding the U.S. Government, bid rigging, felon in possession of a weapon, and money laundering. Also on trial are two of Ferguson's employees and two of his companies, Ferguson Enterprises and Xcel, another contracting company. The long trial ended last week and the jury has had difficulty reaching a verdict. One juror ended up sick and needed to be replaced. That restarted the entire process and they only deliberated half a day on Wednesday.
Download:Bobby Ferguson Indictment
Download:Ferguson Search Warrant
As things stand right now, the jury has told the judge it has reached verdicts in some of the counts and can not come to agreement on some others. The jury came in the courtroom asking judge David Lawson what to do with the fact it can't agree on some counts. He told them to go back and keep talking. As they do, there is a group of attorneys sitting on benches outside Lawson's courtroom at one end of the hall, at the other sat several journalists talking shop. That is on the eighth floor. Down on the second floor there is a dedicated media room where a television feed of Lawson's courtroom is dark right now. More journalists have gathered with computers awaiting word the jury is back. The moment there is any new information, we will pass it along to you.
Ferguson faces a separate trial in September with Kilpatrick and Kilpatrick's father, Bernard.