Deliberating for less than three hours, a jury on Thursday pronounced Brian Olsen, Eagle Mountain's former mayor, "not guilty" on the seven felony counts he faced for misuse of public money.

Olsen wept uncontrollably as he hugged his wife, parents, extended family and even former city staffers and City Council members.

After the verdict, Olsen gave a short statement to the media.

"The system does work," he said. "Eagle Mountain is still a good place. I wish the folks good luck who work out there, and I have no hard feelings. I'm moving on."

During the trial, the defense painted a picture of fiscal confusion in the city, while the prosecutors said Olsen had his hand in the cookie jar.

Prosecutors, during their closing arguments, compared Olsen to Jim Carey in the film "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events," saying "perhaps the lead role should have gone to Olsen." Prosecutors went over each of the seven counts with the jury, restating testimony from state witnesses. They also said they believed Olsen had been "intentionally, knowingly or recklessly" stealing the money for his own benefit or the benefit of others.

They told jurors that Olsen had "his hand caught in the cookie jar."

Defense attorneys told jurors to keep in mind the trial was based on $470.20 and to ask themselves whether the mayor who was paid $70,000 a year was "so greedy" that he would purposefully try to steal less than $500 over nine months.

Olsen's former assistant, Angie Ferre, who according to testimony prepared the reimbursement requests using an electronic calendar and an Internet site without getting Olsen's signature on the forms, "throws her hands up" when asked about her role, said defense attorney Ron Yengich, noting that right or wrong, Olsen "relied on Angie Ferre to funnel these things through the process."

Ferre is one of the people who prompted the investigation into Olsen.

Olsen had testified that he could not have known he was being paid for meetings he did not attend because each week staffers both prepaid and reimbursed him for travel to many events with one check.

Yengich told jurors they may need to cover their eyes in view of "the manner in which accounting is being done out there [Eagle Mountain] and sadly is still being done as of Monday of this week." The people in charge of submitting these kinds of vouchers claim they "never read the policy" until the trial started.

While noting that government employees work hard and don't get paid as much as they should, "at some point Eagle Mountain bears some responsibility for this man being here," Yengich said to jurors, pointing to Olsen as he spoke.

Yengich also blasted the prosecution over an investigator who testified that the state did not have the resources to investigate whether Olsen had ever paid back money that was mistakenly given him. Witnesses testified that at least on two occasions Olsen either discovered he'd been accidently reimbursed too much or had been told, and in both cases he paid the city back the funds.

In failing to do a full investigation "they turn a blind eye to all of the evidence," Yengich said of prosecutors. "And when you only focus on the evidence you have, it means there is reasonable doubt somewhere."