Senator has theft conviction tossed

A state appeals court overturned a theft conviction against state Sen. Gary Siplin, saying a jury wrongly convicted him of having an employee do campaign work on state time.

Florida’s 5th District Court of Appeal ruled that an Orlando jury ignored the possibility that Siplin had no idea his office employee was being paid by the state while working on his reelection campaign in 2004.

The court also threw out a misdemeanor conviction of using state workers to further his campaign, saying the jury wasn’t properly told that Siplin had to have knowledge of his employee working for the campaign on state time. In Florida, appeals courts can overturn jury verdicts where the evidence is all circumstantial, as it was in Siplin’s case.