Some jurors pressing to acquit Dr. Cyril H. Wecht said yesterday that they had trouble buying a central part of the government's argument: that the former Allegheny County coroner schemed to defraud the county and his private clients.

The jury announced Tuesday it was deadlocked and U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab declared a mistrial. A new trial was set for May 27.

"In my opinion, the plan, the scheme was the problem for me personally," said the jury foreman, who requested anonymity in light of the judge's request that jurors not yet speak publicly.

Federal prosecutors charged Dr. Wecht with 41 offenses covering wire fraud, mail fraud and theft from an organization receiving federal funds. They alleged that the forensic pathologist improperly abused county resources in various ways to enrich himself, bilked private clients, and did so with intent.

"His main scheme was to defraud and, my goodness, I didn't see that anywhere. I kept looking for this big criminal scheme. I couldn't find it. It never surfaced for me, as far as I'm concerned," said the Rev. Stanley F. Albright, a prison chaplain who was dismissed for medical reasons during the seventh day of deliberations.

"If we all could have reached agreement on that then we would have had no problem deciding the other charges," said Rev. Albright, 71, of Monroeville.

The government had to prove Dr. Wecht's intent to defraud in order to secure a guilty verdict.

But there were other stumbling blocks. For some jurors, it was testimony from several of Dr. Wecht's private clients who said they were not bothered by his alleged fraudulent invoices.

Prosecutors said Dr. Wecht schemed to overcharge clients for airfare on his consulting trips. They also accused him of sending fake invoices for limousine rides to and from Pittsburgh International Airport when in reality he drove there in a county car accompanied by a coroner's office employee.

"Do you know how many clients Cyril Wecht had? They couldn't find one to come into that courthouse and get on the stand and say, 'Yeah, he defrauded me, I want my money back?'" Rev. Albright said.

The foreman took those concerns one step further, echoing a contention raised by the defense that no problems cropped up with Dr. Wecht's invoices until the FBI began its investigation.

"I guess what bothered me was the FBI went and informed his private clients, 'Look what Dr. Wecht is doing to you,'" the foreman said. "I can understand if they didn't know that ahead of time, OK, fine. But once they were notified, not one of them came forward and said, 'You know something, the government is right, Dr. Wecht cheated me, he robbed me, I would like to file charges, I want my money back, I want something done.'"

Also working against the government was its decision not to call certain witnesses, particularly George Hollis, the former chief histologist at the coroner's office, and Joseph Mancuso, Dr. Wecht's autopsy technician for his private practice.

Prosecutors alleged that one facet of Dr. Wecht's scheme was to have Mr. Hollis prepare tissue slides for his private cases. The bulk of that work was done at the coroner's office on county time, resulting in a backlog of county casework, the government said.

In January 2007, Mr. Hollis pleaded guilty to three federal charges and agreed to cooperate with prosecutors on the Wecht case. During the trial, there was testimony that Mr. Hollis eventually worked almost exclusively on Dr. Wecht's private cases at the county office and then lied about it to a supervisor.

During his closing argument, lead defense attorney Jerry McDevitt referred to the series of "Where's Waldo" children's books, mockingly asking "Where's Hollis?"

"These are the main players. If they would have had something to say, the government would have given them immunity and they would have been here," the foreman said.

Eileen Young, one of Dr. Wecht's former administrative assistants at the coroner's office, did testify under immunity during a grueling seven days on the stand. She was the prosecution's star witness since she essentially ran Dr. Wecht's private business, from bookkeeping to client intake to billing.

"The woman did the best she could under the circumstances, I think," Rev. Albright said. "At one point I kind of looked at the [prosecutor] like you're really badgering this woman."

Rev. Albright also said he was turned off by testimony from another Wecht secretary, Kathleen McCabe, about how FBI Agent Bradley Orsini came to her house one Palm Sunday and told her that Martha Stewart went to prison because she lied.

Defense attorneys stressed that public officials knew full well when Dr. Wecht was elected coroner that he also had a thriving private business, one that put Pittsburgh's name on the map thanks to his many media appearances on high-profile cases.

"If he was using the county car for his own business, maybe they should have asked them to reimburse them," Rev. Albright said. "How's he going to run his business, which they knew he was doing, and not be in that office? It just seemed to me that he ran his business from his office, and it overflowed into the county office and he made some enemies."

Neither Rev. Albright nor the foreman would reveal how jurors were split on the counts. However, they both expressed surprise at the swift decision to retry Dr. Wecht.

"I don't really think they had any alternative than to do that. Otherwise if they didn't do that, that might indicate they didn't even have faith in what they did," Rev. Albright said. "They cost federal taxpayers a lot of money."

The jury foreman said it would have been prudent for prosecutors to try to determine which way the jury was leaning on each count before announcing its decision. He wondered if prosecutors had any additional evidence.

"If there was other stuff then they should have presented it at the first trial," he said.

Both said the jury, split evenly between men and women at the beginning, was diligent and considered each count, trying to find evidence to back up the government's allegations. Jurors took several polls by raising hands or by written ballot.

At one point before Rev. Albright was dismissed, jurors had agreed on three counts. Over the next several days of deliberations, however, people were willing to re-evaluate their positions.

Defense attorneys have claimed that politics is at the heart of Republican U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan's prosecution of Dr. Wecht, a Democrat.

The jury foreman said he went into the trial with an open mind.

"But as the case went on my thoughts were this was being politically driven," he said.