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	Jury Selected in Priest's Trial By Ellen Biltz The Free Lance-Star October 30, 2008 http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2008/102008/10302008/421713 The jury trial for former Catholic priest Rodney Rodis got off to a slow start yesterday with only the completion of jury selection. Rodis, 52, is charged with 10 counts of embezzlement from two Louisa County Catholic churches. His trial was set for yesterday and today, but after the court finally completed jury selection at about 6 p.m., Judge Timothy K. Sanner suggested the trial may last into Friday. Nine women and five men were selected for the jury. Two of the jurors will be used as alternates in case of sickness or another emergency. Most people involved in the case anticipated jury selection lasting through the morning with opening statements occurring at some point in the day. But at 3 p.m., Rusty McGuire, who is prosecuting the case with Louisa Commonwealth's Attorney Tom Garrett, asked Sanner if it would be all right to send home all of the witnesses he had called to testify yesterday. The jury was finally selected yesterday evening after a day of long question-and-answer sessions led by McGuire and Rodis' defense attorney John "Jack" Maus. The most reaction from the parishioners in the courtroom came at the sporadic times throughout the day when Sanner reprimanded Maus on his questioning techniques used to eliminate potential jurors. "You need to be careful, which you so far haven't been," Sanner told Maus at one point in the day after Maus asked questions in order to find out if potential jurors knew that Rodis had been previously convicted on related charges in federal court. Eventually, after choosing 26 potential jurors who passed the questioning round, McGuire and Maus took turns making strikes to the list, ending with the 14 jurors to hear the case. About 90 people who were summoned by the court showed up yesterday in preparation for a potentially grueling jury selection process. Sixty were questioned before arriving at the number of 26 predetermined by the court. Because of the nature of the Rodis case, the attorneys and Sanner asked questions that included topics such as the jurors' affiliations and donations to the Catholic church, as well as whether they felt pastors should be held to a higher standard than other citizens. Rodis' history in the criminal justice system has been complicated since he was first charged in early 2007 with embezzling as much as $1 million from St. Jude and Immaculate Conception Catholic churches. His charges were nolle prossed (dropped with the potential to be brought back) in Louisa County last summer after he was indicted on federal charges of mail fraud and money laundering. He pleaded guilty to and was convicted of those federal charges earlier this year and was sentenced to five years in prison. He was also ordered to pay $600,000 in restitution to Catholic Diocese of Richmond. After the federal convictions, Garrett renewed the Louisa charges, which led to this week's jury trial. The jury trial is now expected to conclude by tomorrow. Ellen Biltz: 540/374-5424, email: ebiltz@freelancestar.com
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