A prominent Twin Cities criminal attorney invoked the U.S. founding fathers, the Constitution and the perfidy of a police sting in closing arguments to a jury Monday in the trial of a man most local sports fans know as Wally the Beer Man.
The fate of Walter McNeil and a fellow former Target Field vendor are with the four-women, two-men jury, which deliberated for three hours Monday afternoon and will resume deliberations Tuesday morning.
McNeil and co-defendant Ed Stepnick are accused of selling alcohol to minors Sept. 30 in a Target Field concourse just before a Twins game.
McNeil's attorney, Peter Wold, told jurors that the nation's founders crafted a constitution in which charged individuals have a presumption of innocence. He said police got people "dressed up at decoys" to get McNeil and Stepnick to break the law when they had no intention to do so.
"Something did not add up here," Wold told the jury, in summing up his case. "These are two very decent men. They are far from criminals. ... Good people should not be tricked into committing a crime.
"It's a new season. Let them have a chance to get on with it."
But Minneapolis Assistant City Attorney Judd Gushwa insisted that the two beer vendors had not been entrapped.
"Ed Stepnick and Walter McNeil sold alcoholic beverages to someone under the age of 21," he said, pointing at the men who sat with their lawyers. Anyone who sells to a minor is guilty of a crime, he said.
