After Ghislaine Maxwell was found guilty of sex trafficking, a juror told media outlets he may have swayed the jury by sharing his experiences of sexual abuse during deliberations.
He said he helped persuade jurors who doubted decades-old memories of Maxwell’s accusers.
While it might have been grand to take credit for Maxwell’s conviction, it brings up issues of perjury and prejudice. And a new trial for Maxwell.
Scotty David
One of the jurors, Scotty David, [his first and middle name], 35, works as an executive assistant at Carlyle Group Inc. It appears Scotty may have lied on the jury questionnaire, sworn under penalty of perjury.
Question # 48 was: “Have you or a friend or family member ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault? (This includes actual or attempted sexual assault or other unwanted sexual advance, including by a stranger, acquaintance, supervisor, teacher, or family member.).”
If answered affirmatively, Scotty had to indicate if it related to himself or a friend or family member.
“He did not fill in that form correctly,” a person familiar with the case told Fox News. “He was asked point-blank, and he said, that isn’t the case. Obviously, it is, from his own words.”
Because Scotty answered “No,” to question #48, he didn’t have to answer subsequent questions, including if he believed that being a victim of sexual assault would affect his “ability to serve fairly and impartially as a juror in this case.”
After answering the questionnaire, Scotty, like other jurors, was questioned by U.S. District Judge Alison Nathan and asked to provide details about his background. Scotty did not disclose his sexual abuse history.
Judge Nathan asked Scotty if he could be fair to both sides in the case. He said he could. The judge asked again: “Other than what I have asked you, do you have any reason to think that you can’t be fair and impartial here?”
“I do not,” Scotty responded.
The Trial
Four women testified at Maxwell’s trial that they were abused as teenagers by Maxwell and her boyfriend Jeffrey Epstein between 1994 and 2004. Epstein died at the Metropolitan Correction Center )MCC) in New York in 2019 while awaiting trial.
Each side called a memory expert to testify. The defense’s memory expert said memories can be corroded over time by outside influences and general decay.
Maxwell’s defense lawyers argued that the women’s memories had been corrupted over the years and that they were motivated by money to implicate Maxwell.
The Jury Deliberates
During deliberations, the jury requested transcripts of the testimony by the defense’s memory expert.
Scotty David told The Independent and Reuters that, after some jurors expressed skepticism about the accounts of two of Maxwell’s accusers, Jane and Carolyn, he shared his experience of having been sexually abused as a child.
He said he remembered the most important elements of what happened to him, but not every single detail. That swayed some jurors, he said.
“When I shared that, they were able to sort of come around on, they were able to come around on the memory aspect of the sexual abuse,” Scotty told Reuters in a phone interview.
Maxwell was convicted on five of six counts related to a sex-trafficking scheme on December 29 after five days of deliberation. She faces up to 65 years in prison.
Scotty Prompts Prosecution
Scotty told Reuters that he “flew through” the jury selection process but didn’t remember being asked about past sexual abuse, though he would have answered honestly if asked.
“It doesn’t matter whether he did it deliberately or he didn’t do it deliberately,” a source told Fox News. “The fact is, he wouldn’t have been allowed to be a juror.”
After reading the interview, prosecutors asked Judge Nathan to investigate Scotty’s remarks.
“Assuming the accuracy of the reporting, the juror asserted that he ‘flew through’ the prospective juror questionnaire and does not recall being asked whether he had been a victim of sexual abuse, but stated that ‘he would have answered honestly’. Based on the foregoing, the government believes the court should conduct an inquiry,” the prosecutors wrote to Nathan.
Maxwell’s lawyers called for a retrial arguing that the Scotty revelations “present incontrovertible grounds for a new trial.”.
Making matters more problematic, a second juror told The New York Times they also shared a personal experience of sexual abuse that “appeared to help shape the jury’s discussions.”
Judge Alison Nathan asked prosecutors and defense to submit briefs on whether a new trial is needed because Maxwell did not have an impartial jury.
Scotty Lawyers Up
Scotty has retained a criminal attorney, Todd Spodek, who in the past represented “fake heiress” Anna Sorokin, a German woman convicted and sentenced to prison in 2019 for scamming New York hotels, banks and others while posing as a billionaire heiress; Genevieve Sabourin, who was convicted and sentenced to 210 days in prison for stalking and harassing actor Alec Baldwin in 2013; and Eddie Robinson, a former National Basketball Association player who was charged in October with defrauding the league’s health and welfare benefit plan.
What Will Happen?
Judge Nathan will ultimately rule on whether to overturn the verdict and grant Maxwell a new trial. Maxwell’s attorneys have asked the judge to rule on this before any of the other motions that are currently pending.
‘Should the defense win this motion – and we believe the law and facts clearly favor us – it will render all other post-trial motions moot,’ they write.
Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor told the Insider, that the jurors’ comments posed issues of perjury and prejudice — lying under oath and having a preconceived opinion that may have improperly swayed the jury.
“This entire conviction may get tossed, and we may have to retry the case,” said Rahmani.
By omitting the information, the juror deprived the defense of the opportunity to probe whether the juror could be fair and impartial.
Take care of this for me, will ya, Hilly?
The longer this drags on, the longer Maxwell spends in the hellhole of MDC.
Jazzlane will never walk the earth a free person. As a woman, she’ll likely outlive Raniere, but with each additional day in MDC, his odds of dying after her increase.
True Love Is Finishing One Another’s Sentences.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CYMzlWouoB2FUMihvRO9tYSqUVU8ocWyK2w0iQ0/
Joking aside, the most important part of a fair trial is an impartial jury.
Biden’s Justice Department, led by the clownish Merrick Garland, really screwed the pooch on not properly vetting all of the jurors.
The Biden Administration is a non-stop amateur hour.
I’d rather have an amateur than a professional criminal grifter…….
“The Biden Administration is a non-stop amateur hour.”
In stark contrast to the exemplary professional team of Mr. Trump I suppose? Please…
The guy lied on his juror form. How is that President Biden’s fault????
Biden had a great speech yesterday (the only good one so far). Watch it, Shadowstate. You might learn something from it…..
Every president has speechwriters. Maybe Biden has a better speechwriter on his team now.
Glad you liked it. That bouncing ball is hard to follow. Whew!
A Trump nominee let Epstein off the first time….
Here we go again….blame Biden, lol. Good God dude, get some sort of life.
What a freakin’ mess.
Unlike the Raniere dead-enders’ ludicrous attempts at an appeal, this really is grounds for a new trial. A juror lied, in writing, and by his own admission prejudiced the deliberations.
Scotty screwed up big time.
The issue of false memory is crucial in the Maxwell case.
“The defense’s memory expert said memories can be corroded over time by outside influences and general decay.”
Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, the defense memory expert, has documented in her research that memories are actually much more than merely corroded by time. They are in fact quite readily changed or even implanted by outside influences. This has been reliably proven by experiment.
We like to think our minds work like file cabinets where data gets stored for future retrieval. Sadly that’s not the case. Stuff gets constantly shuffled around, mixed with other stuff, corrupted by later events. Prof. Loftus (literally) wrote the book on how this works, neurologically.
Memory is unreliable. And crucially, our altered, corrupted memories can be clear as day. We’re certain event X happened just the way we remember it. Twenty years ago.
Just look at the case of Scotty David. He’s sure he was never asked about sexual assault during his jury selection. Yet the court has his jury selection form. Where he answered “no” to the question.
This is why it pays to write stuff down.
The reliability of decades-old memories is highly questionable. This evidently was a sticking point in the lengthy jury deliberations in the Maxwell case. The impartiality of the jury is now seriously in doubt. I foresee a new trial.
I respectfully disagree (for once). Loftus and her BuggsBunnyology are not to be taken seriously. She was debunked expertly by the prosecution. Loftus wrote a book “Witness for the Defense” describing her decades-long role as a witness for the defense. She made good money in this capacity. The prosecution asked her if she ever had written a book “Impartial Witness”. She had not. Ouch. Loftus was also a witness for the defense in Harvey Weinstein’s trial. Not great results there either.
But the big deflation of her testimony came when under cross-examination she admitted that the memory of a traumatic event is reliable.
Good and factual presentation of the facts by Frank. But what a shitshow. How on earth can this happen in the “trial of the century”. Judge Nathan should have asked this question of every juror in person as a precaution before her final decision to appoint the 12 jurors.
Unfortunately, a big win for Maxwell. After the verdict, she was certain of a life in prison and now a new chance for freedom is here for her.
I hope the 4 witnesses/victims are mentally ready for a second trial.
Juror Scotty should put a gun to his head and discharge……….
Juror Scotty was eager giving interviews right after the verdict about his role in the deliberations. He wanted his moment of fame. Well, he got it and then some. It is ironic that juror Scotty was very proud about his role in convicting Maxwell and by his very actions probably will be responsible for a mistrial.
Juror Scotty should be held liable for the costs of the trial if, as a result of his negligent conduct, the jury’s verdict of guilty is overturned and the trial declared a mistrial.