JERSEY CITY -- Nearly two years after his first trial ended with a hung jury, Patrick Powell was found not guilty today on all counts related to the 2011 fatal shooting of his neighbor, Robert Flagler.

The verdict concluded a topsy-turvy trial that took a stunning turn yesterday when Powell's defense attorney accused the police of framing his client with the 69-year-old man's murder.

"It feels good," Powell said from the defense table after the jury's verdict was rendered at about 4:40 p.m. in Hudson County Superior Court Judge Mark Nelson's courtroom. Both of his parents sat a few rows behind him, while the Flagler's wife sat across the room.

"Oh god I feel like crying," Powell's mother, Jackie Irene Powell, said as she sat beside her husband Jesse Powell. "Oh lord I feel good."

Asked what she thought of the verdict, Leatha Flagler said: "I really can't tell. I'm just kinda dumbfounded. We know he was killed somebody killed him... That's as much as I can say."

During the trial and especially in his closing argument, defense attorney Mark Bailey accused the police of staging the crime scene on May 15, 2011 to frame Powell. He said two officers who testified that Patrick Powell confessed to them were lying.

After the verdict today, Baily doubled down, saying: "My defense was not a defense, it was the truth."

But Powell is not out of the woods. He faces sentencing for aggravated assault based on the verdict in his first trial, during which the jury was hung on the murder charge. Hudson County Assistant Prosecutor Michael D'Andrea said he will seek and extended sentence of up to 10 years in prison for the aggregated assault, citing Powell's six prior convictions.

He also faces trial on the charge of criminal sexual contact, D'Andrea said in court. A source said the charge is from when Powell allegedly groped a female police detective at the police station following Flagler's death. Nelson set a hearing for Monday to work on setting a trial date for the sex charge.

During the state's case, jurors heard testimony from a ballistics expert who said the gun found near Flagler's body was the weapon that fired the bullet that entered Flagler's chest, passed through his heart and lung and broke a rib as it exited his back.

Jurors also heard testimony from a DNA expert who said that DNA recovered from the trigger of the gun belonged to Powell with a certainty of "1 in 144 billion, 20 times the population of the earth."

Powell's bail had been set at $750,000, but after today's verdict, Nelson lowered the bail to $50,000.

The verdict came as a surprise after the jurors appeared to raise the possibly of another hung trial. Just before 3 p.m. the jury passed a note to Nelson asking if there is a specific length of time at which point a jury becomes a hung jury. Nelson replied, "No."

The jury also asked "What is a hung jury?" Nelson responded that it is "When you are unable to reach a unanimous verdict." The jury had not even deliberated for a full day by the time it asked Nelson the question.

In a statement, Hudson County Prosecutor Esther Suarez said: "We respect the jury's verdict and continue to believe in the criminal justice system."