Palatine man acquitted of threat, bribe charges at DuPage courthouse

A jury found a Palatine man not guilty Thursday of making a false bomb threat while going through security at the DuPage County courthouse in Wheaton.

Marc J. Mueller, 32, also was acquitted of a bribery charge alleging he offered to pay sheriff’s deputies to avoid prosecution.

Mueller was arrested about 8:20 a.m. July 17, 2008, as he attempted to enter the courthouse to appear in an unrelated drug case.

Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Shannon testified that Mueller arrived, accompanied by two friends, and attempted to bypass several people waiting in line to go through security screening after yelling profanities and acting belligerent.

Shannon said he ordered Mueller to return to the line and take off his belt, at which point the defendant told him it was a “belt bomb.”

Mueller was arrested on the spot on a felony disorderly conduct charge.

Moments later, the defendant — carrying more than $5,000 at the time — offered a cash bribe described as a “tip,” said Shannon, whose testimony was corroborated by several other officers.

“He seemed fairly serious,” Sgt. Thomas Hoffman testified.

But Mueller flatly denied both allegations on the stand Thursday, saying tempers flared but there were never bribes or threats.

“I sarcastically said, ‘It’s a belt, not a bomb,’” he testified.

Mueller portrayed Shannon as the instigator, saying the deputy “got in my face” after he went through a metal detector without taking off his belt. One of the accompanying friends told a similar account to jurors.

Mueller said he became angry when the deputy asked him whether he could read signs with instructions on security procedures.

“That’s like basically calling me a big dummy,” he testified. “I took offense at that. I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did.”

The defense also attacked what they described as a lack of evidence, including surveillance footage and witnesses not involved in the confrontation.

“Wouldn’t it have been helpful to have somebody who didn’t have a dog in that fight?” defense attorney Todd Pugh asked in closing arguments.

Jurors deliberated less than two hours before reaching the verdict at the one-day trial before Judge John Kinsella.

Mueller remains charged in two unrelated drug cases in DuPage. In the more serious one, he is accused of trafficking marijuana in Cook and DuPage counties.