After six hours of deliberation, jurors proclaimed former University of Wisconsin graduate student Rajib Mitra guilty on two counts of intentionally blocking police radio communications numerous times last year and on Halloween.

According to the The Capital Times, Mitra?s lawyer, Christopher Van Wagner, said since the government never recovered the radio Mitra built and used to interfere with police radios there was no solid case against him. He used the radio 21 times between January and August 2003.

Madison police officers testified against Mitra, saying they were unable to handle the Halloween riots on State Street or control the crowds because their radios had been jammed by Mitra?s interferences.

The result of Mitra?s alleged interference disrupted the radio connection between EMTs, firefighters and police officers on State Street for over three hours on Halloween weekend.

?Radios are extremely important; they are literally a lifeline,? Capt. Louis Yudice said. ?If [the radio] is cut or short-circuited, it can have a tremendous impact.?

The importance of the radio was especially significant at the time of the riots because the safety of people on State Street was in jeopardy, Yudice added.

According to The Capital Times, the 500 and 600 blocks of State Street and Orchard and Regent, where Mitra resided at the time of the radio interferences, were described to the jury as ?a dead zone? by Assistant U.S. Attorney Tim O?Shea because no police communication was possible as a result of Mitra?s transmissions.

Mitra claimed he was trying to build a radio to monitor emergency communications on the city?s system and the interferences were unintentional.

However, instead of using a scanner allowing him to listen to the radio communications, Mitra visited hacker websites to purchase a radio with transmitting capabilities, which showed intent to disrupt police communications, O?Shea said, according to The Capital Times.

At first, Mitra used high-pitch tones to disable the radio system. Later, Mitra broadcast pornographic sounds over the radio, forcing police to turn down radios while the sounds were being transmitted, according to The Capital Times.

Mitra, 25, of Brookfield, could face up to 20 years in prison for the charges.

-Megan Costello contributed to this report