The Medford multimillionaire who federal prosecutors said executed a “reign of terror” to protect his Poospatuck Indian reservation cigarette monopoly was acquitted of the most serious charges at his trial Thursday.

Rodney Morrison confidently nodded in approval from his seat at the defense table in the Central Islip federal courthouse after a jury read a 13-page verdict sheet that mostly went his way.

Morrison, 41, was acquitted on nine of 11 counts. The jury found that prosecutors proved Morrison was involved in a conspiracy to sell bootleg cigarettes — but not to commit murder, arson, extortion and robbery.
Morrison, owner of the Peace Pipe Smoke Shop, still faces as much as 20 years in prison on the one racketeering count on which he was convicted. Also, jurors have not reached a verdict on one count of illegal weapons possession. They return to court Monday to resume their deliberations.

Even so, Morrison’s large entourage of supporters celebrated the jury’s decision in the courtroom of U.S. District Court Judge Denis Hurley — hugging, crying and waving their hands in the air. Morrison, who remains held without bail, smiled and laughed throughout the rest of the day.

His supporters, prosecutors and defense attorneys declined to comment after the verdicts. Morrison’s lead attorney, William Murphy Jr., of Baltimore, profusely thanked jurors in court for their thorough consideration of the evidence.

Morrison potentially faced a life sentence if convicted on the most serious charges in the indictment, which asserted that he orchestrated the 2003 murder of former protege Sherwin Henry after he started a competing smoke shop.

Prosecutors also charged Morrison with having Jesse Watkins, the owner of another rival cigarette shop, beaten and robbed of tens of thousands of dollars in cash and cigarettes; and with having the car of another competitor, Thomasina Mack, torched.

But Morrison’s attorneys, Murphy and partner Kenneth Ravenell, questioned the credibility of the government witnesses, who they said stood to gain leniency from prosecutors for their own crimes or the benefit of putting their competitor, Morrison, out of business.

After a four-month trial, jurors deliberated for four weeks before reaching the verdicts and are still not done. They initially found Morrison guilty of a charge of weapons possession. But the judge informed them that one element of the count requires prosecutors to prove that Morrison has been previously convicted of a felony.

After accepting the partial verdict, prosecutors spent much of yesterday afternoon wrangling with legal technicalities trying to prove that Morrison had been convicted in 1991 of criminal negligent homicide and a felony drug charge.