MICROWAVE JUSTICE

Testimony lasted barely three hours, the jury was out less than an hour and Sangamon County sheriff’s deputy Travis Koester emerged victorious Tuesday from a lawsuit in which he stood accused of wrongfully tasering Paul Mariconi during a 2009 bar fi ght. Mariconi, the owner of the bar on Toronto Road, claimed that he was trying to point out the instigator of the fi ght and tell police that one of his employees had done no wrong when Koester tased him after fi rst ordering him to raise his hands. Mariconi testifi ed that he couldn’t raise one of his arms due to an injury suffered in a motorcycle accident, nor could he put his arms behind his back as ordered for the same reason, and so Koester tased him four times before police put him into handcuffs. Mariconi, who wasn’t charged with a crime as a result of his encounter with Koester, testifi ed that his arm injury worsened after he was tased to the point that his use of Vicodin for chronic pain jumped from 15 to 20 pills per month up to 60 pills per month. He also said that he developed a ringing in his ears, but testimony from two of his physicians cast doubt on his claims. One of the physicians said that Mariconi’s ingestion of painkillers had decreased in recent years. Koester said that he never ordered Mariconi to raise his hands, and he also testifi ed that he considered Mariconi a threat because the bar owner ignored several orders to back off while police dealt with combatants. A Springfi eld police sergeant corroborated Koester’s account for the jury, which ruled in the deputy’s favor after less than an hour of deliberations.