HAMMOND | A federal jury returned guilty verdicts Thursday night against three political heavyweights -- Lake County Councilman Will Smith Jr., tax collector Roosevelt Powell and Gary attorney Willie Harris.

All three were found guilty of filing false tax returns for failing to report a combined $150,000 in "finder's fees" they got for arranging the $200,000 sale of a vacant grocery store in Gary's Miller neighborhood to the Gary Urban Enterprise Association in 2001.

Smith, 68, who was president of County Council when he was indicted last year, was convicted of one count of filing a false tax return in 2001. He was acquitted of two conspiracy charges.

Harris, 54, and Powell, 63, were convicted of one count each of filing false tax returns, conspiring to defraud the public charity that legally owned the store and conspiring to illegally erase back taxes on the store. They were each acquitted of one conspiracy charge.

Smith faces a maximum of three years in prison and Harris and Powell face up to 28 years when they're sentenced in early January, although the sentences are highly dependent on federal guidelines and U.S. District Judge Philip Simon's judgment.

"The message is don't take advantage of people and don't abuse your power, because that's what this case was about," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gary Bell said. "What it affirms is that the U.S. attorney's office is going to continue to fight corruption."

None of the defendants showed emotion when the verdicts were read about 7:30 p.m. Thursday.

"I think the verdict is fair, based on the evidence," said defense attorney Fred Work, who got Smith acquitted of the charges that could have carried the most prison time.

Harris' wife, Dharathula Hood-Harris, had little to say about the trial, in which she took the witness stand as Harris' bookkeeper.

"He was not guilty," Hood-Harris said.

The jury deliberated for about 16 hours over two days following the seven-day trial. The verdict came about seven hours after the jury of eight women and four men wrote Simon a note Thursday saying they were "hopelessly deadlocked" on eight of the charges.

Though the case featured a blizzard of paperwork -- quit-claim deeds, cash receipts registers and profit-loss statements -- Bell said the prosecution's case rested mainly on the testimony of close friends and family members of the defendants.

One victim who testified was Dharathula Millender, who is Harris' aunt-in-law and the founder of the Gary Historical and Cultural Society, which owned the grocery store at 6300 Miller Ave. and yet lost 75 percent of the profits of the sale to "finder's fees."

Also testifying was Dorothy Ard, a longtime family friend of Harris, who said Harris betrayed her by forging her signature on a GUEA check that made it look as though she took an absurd, twenty-fold profit on the sale of the building at 768-778 Broadway.

Harris and Powell also were convicted of fraudulently reducing property taxes on the grocery store by $58,000, telling a judge the building would have to be razed because of poor condition -- on the same day they received their profits from the sale.

Prosecutors said the three men deliberately failed to report the income on their 2001 tax returns. Defense attorneys noted that the taxes were paid in 2004, after a civil audit of Powell's taxes uncovered the profits.