Charity proved the decisive factor during the four hours that jurors weighed the fate of Ted H. Roberts.

The 50-year-old was convicted of stealing from two of the men after telling them their payments totaling $100,000 would go to charity. Instead it helped him and his wife buy a new home and finance his law firm.

At the same time, jurors acquitted the civil lawyer on charges involving a third man, who said he didn't care where his $10,000 went, and a fourth figure, who knew his payments would help Roberts recoup personal expenses.

The panel's foreman suggested afterward that part of Roberts' own culpability was canceled out by the sins of the men, all of whom were married at the time and three of whom had met Mary Roberts via an online dating service.

"We felt like they were all guilty," said the jury foreman, Doug Eckhardt.

The mixed result gave both sides something to grasp onto.

"We're very glad the jury didn't buy the defense that 'This is what lawyers do,'" First Assistant District Attorney Cliff Herberg said. "Decent lawyers in this community were outraged by this conduct."

Defense attorneys promised to appeal and complained that prosecutors had misled jurors.

"I firmly believe he was innocent. We're going to do everything we can to overturn this," Mike McCrum, the lead defense lawyer, announced as his client ambled slowly alone down an empty courthouse corridor.

Roberts is eligible for probation but faces up to 20 years in prison; sentencing is slated for April 30.

The case hinged on his creative and unusual response to his wife Mary's serial adultery in late 2001: The lawyer drafted legal petitions.

The documents declared that Roberts was considering suing his wife and her paramours for an array of sensational claims, involving offenses such as sodomy and insider trading.

The litigation would alert their spouses and involve their employers, he warned. Or, it could be avoided by settlements.

Some could repay him for expenses he attributed to the affairs, such as the cost of hiring a computer consultant to uncover all his wife's incriminating e-mails.

A local accountant, Paul J. Fitzgerald, complied by writing three checks for $15,000 total.

Others were asked to donate to a charity that Roberts said he was in the process of creating, the Roberts Foundation for Children.

Eckhardt, the jury foreman, said several factors made the panel doubt the sincerity behind the claims that the affairs devastated Roberts and disrupted his marriage.

The couple had longstanding marital problems. In fact, Roberts had been the first to search online for extramarital sex. And they never divorced. Instead, they bought a house worth at least three times the value of their previous home.

But what most disturbed jurors was the way Roberts handled the charity donations.

A $30,000 check from an Austin attorney, Geoffrey Ferguson, was used as part of a down payment on the $635,000 new home in a gated subdivision in Northwest San Antonio.

An Austin businessman, Reagan Sakai, donated $10,000 but jurors didn't consider his money stolen because the executive said he didn't care where it went; to him, it was simply "hush money."

Another man, a San Antonio executive named Steven W. Riebel, demanded proof the charity was real and waited months for it to be provided before he wrote a $70,000 check in March 2002.

Within six months, the Robertses had transferred the money into their law firm account and then moved at least $20,000 into their personal account.

Defense lawyers argued mightily that Roberts had needed the money when he hit a financial crisis. At most, they said, he was guilty of mishandling charitable donations — not theft.

The argument failed to impress.

"You could trace the money: It never went to the kids," Eckhardt said. "That really upset everybody."

The verdict followed two hours of closing arguments that left observers in the crowded courtroom debating the case in the aisle and hallway.

The defense mocked the state's case, especially the alleged victims.

Defense lawyer Alan Brown pointed to the front row of the gallery, where crime victims and their families typically watch and wait for justice.

Where were the victims in this case? he asked, calling each of the men by name. None was present.

"We're the victims ... that we have to listen to this foolishness," Brown said. "This court hears capital murder cases, serious cases. We have to hear a soap opera."

Prosecutors Tamara Strauch and Bill Pennington had the last word, and they drove their point home by projecting images on a screen.

The result was that, as jurors filed out of the courtroom, they passed a picture of Roberts.

A quote filled the rest of the screen with words that a private investigator had recalled Roberts saying when he discovered his wife's e-mails to her lovers:

"When I confront them, they'd better bring their checkbook because they're going to be writing a check to my favorite charity ... me."