The companion of the person known as the “treehouse killer” was found guilty on Thursday of perjury for giving false statements to a grand jury during the investigation into the death of Michael Chiklis in 2018.
Jonathan Lind still has pending charges of being an accessory to murder and tampering with a corpse, while his lawyer mentioned that they plan to appeal the perjury conviction, as per the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.
Julia Enright was convicted of murdering Chiklis, her former boyfriend, by enticing him to a treehouse she had prepared with restraints and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2022, as reported by CrimeOnline. Prosecutors claimed that she committed the crime as a favor to Lind, who then assisted her in disposing of the body along a New Hampshire highway.
Lind’s perjury trial started on Monday and ended Thursday with less than six hours of jury deliberations, the Telegram & Gazette said. But his attorney, Kevin C. Larson, said he’s confident he can get the conviction overturned since Lind didn’t actually lie to the grand jury, he just left out information.
“The law was misapplied here,” Larson said. “The government was allowed to argue perjury by omission … (The prosecutor) said he lied because he didn’t tell the truth, and I don’t think that’s a proper argument under the perjury statute.”
Lind will return to court for sentencing on January 21. The judge denied him bond in the interim.
A trial date has not been set for the other two charges, which will be tried at the same time.
