GADSDEN — Former state Sen. Larry Means and eight other defendants received mostly good news last week at the federal courthouse in Montgomery after the jury in the State House bingo trial returned not guilty verdicts on 81 of the 124 charges against them. The jury deadlocked on the remaining 43 charges.

Means, a Democrat, served two terms in the Alabama Legislature representing voters in Etowah and Cherokee counties before losing to a Republican challenger last fall.

Within one day of the announcement that he had been indicted in October, Means released a statement calling the charges against him politically motivated and "ridiculous." Means was alleged to have conspired with casino owner Milton McGregor and others to ensure passage of a law to allow electronic bingo in Alabama.

"The accusations against me are false and offend every value I hold dear," read the statement from Means dated Oct. 5, 2010. "The people pulling the strings behind the scenes are going to find that my constituents, my friends and neighbors, won’t be fooled by their trumped-up charges."

For the most part, Means saw himself vindicated last week in Montgomery. The jury of one man and 11 women found Means innocent on 14 of 16 charges. The jury remained deadlocked on one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery related to a $100,000 campaign contribution.

Judge Myron Thompson has said he will set a date for a new trial within a month.

The trial hinged on testimony from three people who pleaded guilty — including Country Crossing entertainment center developer Ronnie Gilley — and secretly taped recordings made by legislators working for the FBI who wore wires or used tapped phones.

Prosecutors told jurors the recordings showed an illegal scheme to swap money for votes on the bingo bill. Defense lawyers countered that prosecutors tried to spin the facts by playing snippets of recorded conversations out of context.

For the most part, the jury sided with the defense, which in an unorthodox move decided against calling a single witness after the prosecution finished presented its case.

The bingo bill passed the Alabama Senate on March 30, 2010. But it never received a vote in the House of Representatives because federal officials made public their investigation of its passage in the Senate.