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A federal court jury deliberated Friday whether two West Valley City police officers violated the civil rights of a Utah couple and used excessive force during a drug bust nearly four years ago.

Eleven jurors heard testimony over the last week in U.S. District Court about an incident on Oct. 26, 2012, when John Coyle — then the lieutenant of the city's Neighborhood Narcotics Unit — and Detective Sean McCarthy and other officers searched a home where Terry and Brandy Christiansen were living. A physical fight took place between Coyle and Terry Christiansen, and McCarthy at some point searched Brandy Christiansen.

The Christiansens claim Coyle slammed the husband's head into walls, knocked his teeth loose and held him in a choke hold until he was unconscious.

The wife was illegally searched about four times, the lawsuit alleges, including by McCarthy, who she claims put his hands down her pants and touched her vaginal area under the guise of looking for drugs.

The husband and wife were both arrested, and Terry Christiansen was later charged with aggravated assault, drug and weapon charges.

Attorneys say the police officers went to the home because of a tip that there was marijuana in the home. While Coyle was in the home, Terry Christiansen became nervous and reached for his waistband, criminal charges allege. The lieutenant saw him remove a clear vial and ordered Terry Christiansen to show his hands, according to charges. Instead, Terry Christiansen ran toward the back of the home, where a struggle ensued and the man sliced Coyle's thumb with a knife, charges state.

Police say that at some point, Terry Christiansen — who was on parole at that time — tried to flush the vial down the toilet. The drugs were later removed from the toilet by another officer, according to police, and the crystal substance inside field-tested positive for methamphetamine.

Central to the civil lawsuit is whether the police actually found the methamphetamine in the house as they claimed they did — because if there were no drugs, there was not any reason for the Christiansens to be detained.

The Christiansens' attorney, David Gammill, told jurors during his closing argument Friday that a vial of meth was not found that day — and that the police somehow planted the drugs into the case file at some point after the Christiansens were arrested.

Six police officers testified during the trial that they saw the vial, Gammill said, but he accused them all of lying to cover for one another.

"They are all in on it," he told jurors. "… These police officers looked you in the eye and lied to you."

The proof? Gammill told jurors that the officer who testified that he weighed the drugs at the home weighed the product inside the bag and the total weight was 4.0 grams. A small portion of the drugs was taken out of the bag to be tested, Gammill said, and the remainder was sent to the state crime lab. An analyst there weighed the meth without the bag and it weighed 4.8 grams — more than 20 percent heavier than what the police initially reported.

"Drugs don't grow," Gammill argued. "The weight goes down — it's out of the bag."

Gammill further argued that the police officers' versions of events just didn't make sense. If Terry Christiansen had fished the drugs out of his waistband as officers said he did, and then wielded a knife and attacked Coyle, he would have been shot by the officers. The attorney asked the jurors to return a "devastating" verdict of $10.5 million in both compensatory and punitive damages.

"That's a big number," Gammill said. "That's a big number that sends a message."

Blake Hamilton, who represents the two officers named in the suit, argued in response that the Christiansens were looking for a payday in the midst of a controversial disbanding of the Neighborhood Narcotics Unit. A 2013 investigation revealed unit officers were too slow to book evidence, failed to file police reports after displaying their guns, and placed GPS tracking devices on suspects' cars without first gaining a court order to do so, among other problems.

State and federal prosecutors ultimately tossed out more than 120 cases linked to the unit — Terry Christiansen's included, although his case was refiled in 2014 and has yet to be resolved.

Hamilton pegged the problems of the drug unit on Shaun Cowley, who shot and killed 21-year-old Danielle Willard in November 2012, and said neither Coyle nor McCarthy had ever been accused of excessive force in the past.

Hamilton explained the differing drug weights by saying that the officer in the field who initially weighed the drugs may not have gotten an accurate weight because he was not in a controlled lab, but instead was measuring the drugs on a kitchen table in a drug house "with a mouse running around."

"They want you to believe this Hollywood story," Hamilton said, "that after this low-level drug bust, the officers got together and thought they needed to think of a way to cover things up."

He asked jurors to find that the officers did not use excessive force and did not violate the Christiansens' rights.

"That's justice," Hamilton said. "It's not justice to give these people over $10 million. It's justice to check 'No' [on the jury verdict form] so that these fine officers … can go on living their lives without these allegations hanging over them. That's finally vindicating them, and that's justice."