In a stunning defeat for federal prosecutors, John Wiley Price, the veteran politician who wields vast power and influence over Dallas County, was found not guilty Friday of bribery and fraud.

The jury that considered whether he was abusing his public office to rake in about $1 million in secret profits over a decade also couldn’t reach a verdict on charges of tax evasion. The judge declared a mistrial on the deadlocked charges.

The U.S. attorney’s office will decide whether to retry Price on the tax charges.

The jury’s decision on its eighth day of deliberations is a major vindication for a powerful politician who has been in the cross-hairs of federal officials for years.

"The jury has spoken," Price, 67, said after the trial as he walked away from the courthouse.

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Price, the highest-profile politician to be tried in Dallas' history, claimed his innocence through years of federal scrutiny, and refused to resign when he was indicted. Now "Our man downtown," as he is known by many, is free to get back to business as a county commissioner.

In the courtroom as the verdict was read, he smiled and nodded, holding his attorneys' hands. He told The Dallas Morning News he was "relieved," adding that he believed God helped him.

"We were prayed up and therefore we didn't have to be preyed on," Price said.

The jury also found Dapheny Fain, 55, Price's longtime top aide, not guilty of helping Price dodge his taxes and of lying to the FBI about the commissioner's profits from her office supply business.

"It just feels great," said Tom Mills, an attorney for Fain. "It feels like a big relief. For a long time I've worried how bad it'd feel if that wasn't the verdict."

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Not surprised

Shirley Baccus-Lobel, Price's lead attorney, said she knew what was coming.

"I was expecting that," she said of the verdicts. "I don't see how, with the evidence, there could have been a conviction.

"I wasn't surprised," she said, then added, "That doesn't mean my heart wasn't beating 100 miles per hour."

In the courtroom, U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn thanked jurors and strongly advised them not to talk to the media, although she noted it was their First Amendment right to do so.

"You worked very, very hard," the judge told the jurors. "Your objective was unanimous verdict on all counts. You have nothing to be ashamed of" for not reaching a conclusion on the deadlocked counts.

The jurors later slipped away without commenting on the case.

The jury included three African-Americans, one man and two women. Two other people of color were on the jury, both women. There were seven others who appeared to be white or of some lighter-skinned ethnicity. One was a man and the others are women.

The judge also set a four-week deadline for prosecutors to tell her their plans for Price and his former political consultant Kathy Nealy, now that most of the case is effectively ended with the not-guilty verdicts.

The Price case's outcome is likely to affect the fate of Nealy, 64, whose trial is to be held at a later date. She is accused of paying bribes to Price. The Price verdict may mean she'll never face trial.

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Nealy was given a separate trial due to questions about an immunity agreement the government gave her several years ago in an unrelated political corruption case. The government says the agreement was narrow and did not shield Nealy from criminal liability in the Price case.

The prosecution told Lynn it will evaluate its stand on Price's confiscated property.

The government seized $229,590 in cash from a safe in Price's home in 2011 and $230,763 that he earned from a land sale to a developer, claiming they were ill-gotten gains. Fain said half of the money found in the safe was hers.

A civil forfeiture case involving that property was put on hold pending the outcome of the criminal case.

U.S. Attorney John R. Parker issued a statement that said, "I will be convening with the prosecution team over the next several days regarding where we go from here, consistent with the court's timeline."

Walt Junker, the lead prosecutor on the case, declined to comment as he left the courtroom.

Mills said that he’s not sure how the U.S. attorney’s office makes its decisions but that he “would think logically that they will not proceed” with the tax counts against Price.

But he noted that an FBI agent said during the trial that about 150 FBI and IRS agents worked on the case. “So there’s no telling how many millions of dollars they have invested in it,” he said.

Evidence problems

During the nine-week trial, Lynn warned prosecutors that she felt they did not prove anything fraudulent about payments Nealy sent to Price by mail for vehicles she allowed him to use. Lynn had planned to dismiss those counts if the jury came back with guilty verdicts on them.

Price, a polarizing and outspoken figure who has fought for equal opportunities for black companies and workers, has represented his constituents for over 30 years in southern Dallas County.

He's the "most significant political figure" ever to be prosecuted in the city, according Matt Orwig, former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas. Price faced the prospect of losing not only his job and reputation but also his freedom. Now there’s nothing stopping him from continuing his work for the county.

Dallas County commissioner John Wiley Price walks out of the the Earle Cabell Federal Building while holding hands with his lawyer, Shirley Baccus-Lobel, after being found not guilty of seven counts during his federal corruption trail in Dallas. (Andy Jacobsohn/The Dallas Morning News)

The government's case relied heavily on circumstantial evidence made up mostly of financial records such as bank transactions. Defense attorneys poked holes in the evidence, saying prosecutors and agents overlooked documents in their own evidence that proved Price was being paid back for loans he gave his two friends over the years.

Prosecutors even went so far as to tell jurors about the custom suits in Price's wardrobe and free braidings he got from a hairdresser.

The case was unusual for its reach, looking back as far as 2002 at Price's votes and other actions on county information technology contracts, citing them as evidence of bribe-taking. Conspiracy allegations in the Price indictment nullified the normal five- and six-year deadlines prosecutors have to bring charges.

Price's lawyers complained that the enormous scope of the allegations hampered their ability to mount a defense due to the passage of time and the fact that many records of financial transactions between the friends that could prove their innocence were no longer available.

Prosecutors repeatedly focused during the trial on evidence showing that Price leaked bid documents to Nealy to help her clients. But such local ethical violations are not part of the federal case, as the defense pointed out.

Prosecutors repeatedly asked witnesses what they would have done had they known Price was receiving money from Nealy. Most said they would have severed ties with Nealy and reported it. Then defense attorneys would ask witnesses if they knew what the payments were for. They always said no.

Price sat silently at the defense table while prosecutors made their case to the jury. He told The News he wanted to take the stand in his defense but did not. He also told The News he was not worried.

The commissioner was praised repeatedly for his record and breadth of knowledge not only by his attorneys but also by the prosecutors and dozens of witnesses they called.

The vast majority of those who testified conceded that Price knows more about the arcane workings of county government and its issues than anyone else in Dallas County. They also said he's worked tirelessly from dawn until sometimes late at night and never took vacations.

The four court-appointed defense attorneys were up against a well-funded government team that had years to prepare for trial.

But the trial had to be delayed three times so the defense could catch up with all the evidence, some of which was provided after delays due to technical and other problems.

More than 50 witnesses testified over seven weeks for the government, which amassed as many as eight terabytes of electronic evidence in the case.

The investigation officially began in 2010, according to the FBI. But agents began gathering evidence against Price and Nealy long before that, back in 2005, when they were digging into unrelated corruption at Dallas City Hall.

Staff writers Jennifer Emily and Nanette Light contributed to this report.

Here's a summary of each count in the indictment and the outcome.