Co-Defendant in Rep. Reynolds Case Is Acquitted

The judge at the sex-abuse trial of Rep. Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.) denied motions Tuesday to throw out charges against the congressman but exonerated the congressman’s co-defendant.

Judge Fred G. Suria said jurors should decide the charges accusing Reynolds of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, criminal sexual abuse, child pornography and obstruction of justice.

But he acquitted the other defendant, Eddie McIntyre, of obstruction-of-justice charges, saying the state had not proved its case. McIntyre’s girlfriend is the the mother of Beverly Heard, the woman who accuses Reynolds of having sex with her when she was 16 and 17.

Prosecutors contended that McIntyre took Heard to Tennessee to conceal her from investigators.

McIntyre showed little emotion in the courtroom when Suria announced the decision but left the room smiling with one of Reynolds’ defense attorneys next to him.

“All I can say is, believe in God,” McIntyre said after the verdict.

McIntyre had been a bit player throughout the case, taking a back seat to the more spectacular charges against Reynolds.

On Tuesday, assistant prosecutor Colleen Hyland had Reynolds read some of his most graphic lines from a transcript of taped conversations in which Reynolds and Heard discussed sex.

Reynolds obliged but repeatedly denied the discussions were about real events, often trying to talk over Hyland’s next question in an effort to elaborate on his answers.

In four hours of testimony Monday, Reynolds, 43, had portrayed himself as a man who rose above trying circumstances only to fall victim to a weakness for phone sex with a troubled teen-ager who pressured him for money.

He said repeatedly that he never had sex with Heard.

She said they began having sex within a couple of weeks after meeting on the street outside a high school.

But Reynolds said he met her and several other teen-agers while campaigning in June, 1992, with the thought that they would tell their parents to vote for him.

Reynolds testified that Heard asked him for $15,000 in April, 1994, after she returned from the Air Force, because she was living on the street. Reynolds testified that he said no. He said she asked again the day before she went to police with her story.