Jurors in the Tony Martin Jr. trial will continue deliberations Friday morning after asking visiting Superior Court Judge J.C. Cole for evidence to review inside the jury room.

The state and defense were split on the matter so Judge Cole this evening decided to allow them to review the material inside the courtroom and the continue deliberations Friday.

The request came nearly an hour after they went in to begin deliberations.

Cole gave the jury their instructions following closing arguments in the case, in which defense attorney Kanter Searcy Morris argued the jurors merely heard a case about a loan that should be a civil matter while Halifax County Assistant District Attorney Amy Broughton argued they heard a case about a calculated con man.

“Why are we here?” Morris asked. “We’re here for a loan.”

Morris, arguing against her client being found guilty of obtaining property by false pretense and exploitation of elder trust, said Faye Pierce, was in charge of her personal finances and responsible for getting her bills paid.

Pierce, Morris contended, was merely continuing the longtime practice of her late husband, who was known for making loans to people. “The lending business continued as usual,” she said, with Pierce as well as her daughter and son-in-law, who both loaned Martin money.

Pierce demonstrated her fiscal awareness by paying Martin for his interior decorating work and by making weekly bank runs for the plumbing business that continued after her husband’s death.

Morris said Martin took pictures of Pierce at PNC Bank last week because, “His liberty was in jeopardy.”

The defense attorney argued that no one put safeguards in place to protect Pierce from blowing her money,

While Martin ran his business in an unconventional way, “He knows his clients and knows what they want,” she said. “It may not make sense but that’s the way he does it.”

The 12 checks written on a closed business account were merely IOUs that Pierce knew were from a closed account, she said. She loaned Martin money because she knew she was going to make 10 percent off the interest. “She never felt pressured that he was pushing her to do something. He never begged her for anything. The problem was he could not pay her back as quickly as she would have liked.”

Said Morris: “He defaulted on paying a loan. It’s a civil matter, not a crime.”

Broughton argued that on four separate dates, Martin received two checks signed by the victim and that he took one each to two separate banks to cash or deposit so as not to raise suspicions by either bank, one of a number of different evasive actions he took to avoid suspicion.

It wasn’t until after Junior Pierce died, that Martin began showing up and asking for loans. “He was draining someone of their money,” Broughton said.

The plan started with a business relationship and Martin began giving Mrs. Pierce flowers and wreathes and taking her to dinner.

During questioning on what Broughton described as his unscrupulous business practices, Martin became visibly agitated. “He’s preying on elderly people who aren’t going to question him. He became agitated anytime someone questioned him. He deliberately avoided the facts of the case.”

Martin went as far, Broughton said, to contact a doctor who testified in the case. He also took pictures of Pierce Friday in the bank. “She was scared.”

The $80,000 interior-decorating job he did for Mrs. Pierce consisted of choosing colors and buying fabric and furniture.

When he spent that money he came back for more, Broughton said.

Martin was a credit risk to banks, the assistant DA said, and after borrowing money from Mrs. Pierce’s daughter and son-in-law he went to Mrs. Pierce because they made him pay the money back. “She was grieving and vulnerable. She was the perfect mark. He knew she had vision problems.”

Pierce’s increasing requests to get her money back suggested that she was going to stop lending money, which Broughton contended was why he wrote the 12 checks to appease her. “He knew that gravy train was coming to an end.”