CHICAGO – A traveling salesman from Plainfield who, fearing he was about to lose his biggest client, suddenly left on a business trip to Iowa in the middle of a trial where he was serving as a juror has become a symbol all-too prevalent disregard of the jury service, a federal judge told the man at his sentencing hearing.

But the chief judge at the U.S. District Court in Chicago stopped short of imposing a jail term on Scott Enke, 33, and instead fined him $1,000. Judge James Holderman also ordered him to write an essay for publication on the incident and told him to attend a symposium later this year on the jury system.

Minutes before, an apologetic, deferential Enke stood ram-rod straight at a lectern, repeatedly apologizing and saying he now knew what he did was wrong.