After six days of deliberation, a federal jury in Kentucky found Melbourne Mills – who argued that he was too drunk to take part in a criminal conspiracy - not guilty of taking millions from his former clients in a $200 million fen-phen settlement, The Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

Mills, 77, who had to be hospitalized during the trial because of heart problems, had been in custody since August, when US District Judge William Bertelsman jailed him and co-defendants William Gallion and Shirley Cunningham Jr., saying they were too much of a flight risk, the paper writes, adding that the jury will continue deliberations today on the fate of Gallion and Cunningham.

The lawyers represented about 440 clients in a case against Wyeth, which withdrew two diet pills in 1997 and agreed to a global settlement. The three attorneys who represented diet-pill users in the Kentucky case are accused of plundering the payout. They allegedly received the bulk of the settlement - about $105 million - while the clients received $74 million.

Prosecutors say the three might have taken more of the money if they had not received a subpoena from the Kentucky Bar Association in February 2002 asking about the settlement money. Shortly after they received the subpoena, bank records showed that Gallion and Cunningham wired money from accounts in their name back into accounts designated solely for client funds.

Here’s the rest of the story…and here’s some background.