Gizmondo bloke to be retried

Former Gizmondo executive Stefan Eriksson will be retried on counts of fraud and grand theft after his first jury couldn't reach a decision.

A judge declared a mistrial on Friday after jurors were deadlocked 10-2 in favour of conviction on the charges, which centred on Eriksson's having imported rare sports cars to the US and then stopped making payments on them.

Eriksson is famous among gamers for his role in setting up and then running the Gizmondo handheld business into the ground, and latterly for smashing up a red Ferrari Enzo on a Californian highway before turning out to be part of the Swedish mafia.

Sadly this particular trial had nothing to do with the legend of his Enzo crash, which left the car in two pieces, and where he famously told detectives that he wasn't driving but instead it was some bloke called Dietrich who'd legged it into the hills.

Instead it was about a Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren and a black Ferrari Enzo. Eriksson reportedly admitted that he'd stopped making payments on the cars, but said it was because Gizmondo went under, and not because he intended to nick them.

Anyway, the LA District Attorney's office confirmed to ABC News that a retrial was on the cards, and Eriksson also has charges of possession of a firearm (a .357 magnum) ahead of him, with jury selection beginning today.

His head lawyer Jim Parkman said Eriksson was "in very good spirits" about the mistrial result.