Yet another facet of a Salem ATM company's struggle against financial sabotage played out in federal court this week with a split jury verdict in the case of a Utah man accused of meddling in Couvrette Building Systems' efforts to recover assets from a former top administrator.

The four-day trial of Richard Reid Jenkins, a CPA and senior minister of records for the Church of Healing Arts and Sciences, ended Thursday in U.S. District Court in Roanoke with what Assistant U.S. Attorney Pat Hogeboom termed a "one, one and one" decision.

The jury found Jenkins guilty of one count of conspiring to obstruct justice in a criminal proceeding, acquitted him of a count of conspiracy to obstruct justice in a civil proceeding, and deadlocked on a third obstruction charge.

Jenkins was one of three officials in the church charged in connection with federal civil and criminal cases involving Roy Alonzo Dickinson, the one-time chief financial officer of Couvrette, a company that supplies a variety of ATM installations and services. From 2001 to 2005, Dickinson misused company money and stopped withholding payroll taxes to attract Internal Revenue Service sanctions, all while forming a shadow company to take Couvrette's top employees and customers.

His actions cost Couvrette millions of dollars and prompted it to lay off nearly half of its 120 employees, owner Ed Couvrette has said.

Earlier this year, Dickinson was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud and tax charges.

As part of the criminal case and in a related civil lawsuit, he was ordered to pay just over $1 million to Couvrette Building Systems -- far less than he cost the company, court records said.

The church -- which claimed 1,500 members and was geared more toward finances and held no religious services, prosecutors said -- became involved in Dickinson's case in 2005. Faced with owing a $750,000 civil settlement to Couvrette, Dickinson donated to the church a rental building he owned in California -- valued at about $500,000 -- and other assets. Dickinson became a minister, and the church paid his regular living expenses.

In May, church Senior Minister Kerry Rex Smith pleaded guilty to conspiring to obstruct justice. On Monday, as a joint trial with Jenkins began, Louis L. Getman, the head of a church chapter in California, said he would plead guilty to falsifying a document.

Accusations against Jenkins included that he, along with Smith and Getman, tried to financially burden and ward off prosecution by filing questionable bonds that claimed they were owed $2.5 billion by court officials and others.

Jenkins' attorney, Gary Lumsden of Roanoke, said after the hearing that while he didn't understand all of his client's actions, he thought Jenkins, Smith and Getman had unusual ideas about finances but little money to play with until they encountered Dickinson.

Dickinson "was like the lottery ticket," Lumsden said.

Prosecutors later characterized the church members' maneuvers as attempts to evade taxes and other obligations.

Hogeboom said there was no immediate decision on whether to retry Jenkins on the undecided obstruction charge.

Jenkins, 59, was returning to his home near Salt Lake City pending sentencing or further hearings, Lumsden said.

In a case separate from the Dickinson-Couvrette struggle, authorities last month filed a civil lawsuit in federal court in Utah to close Jenkins' tax preparation business, saying he helped customers file returns claiming bogus refunds as large as $210 million.