FARIBAULT, Minn. (AP) - A jury has convicted a man of conspiring to kill Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom.
The Rice County jury convicted John Woodward Friday. Jurors acquitted Woodward of conspiracy to commit assault against a woman.
Prosecutors alleged Woodward hatched a revenge plot while he was in prison on a drug conviction.
The St. Paul Pioneer Press (http://bit.ly/TPAAQK)
reports Woodward was convicted of trying to pay a fellow inmate to kill
Backstrom, Woodward's former neighbor. Woodward's plot was foiled when
the inmate told prison officials and agreed to wear a recording device.
Earlier, a judge dismissed a charge that alleged
Woodward tried to pay to have the judge who sentenced him on the drug
conviction killed. He was acquitted of trying to have a woman who
testified against him maimed with a baseball bat.
Information from: St. Paul Pioneer Press, http://www.twincities.com
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