The juror who was part of the Ghislaine Maxwell case that was found to have falsely answered a questionnaire designed to filter individuals said he made an "honest mistake" by withholding he had experience being a victim of sexual abuse or harassment.
On Tuesday, the individual in question testified in court and told a federal judge in Manhattan that he had read quickly through a pretrial screening questionnaire. The form asked potential jurors whether they had been sexually abused and he mistakenly checked "no."
Ghislaine Maxwell Juror
The man, identified as Juror 50, told Manhattan Judge Alison J. Nathan, that it was one of the biggest mistakes he has made in his entire life. The juror insisted that he did not lie to get on the jury in Maxwell's case.
The juror added that if he had the opportunity to return to the moment that he answered the questionnaire, he would correct the mistake he made. The situation comes as 60-year-old Maxwell, the former companion of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted of sex trafficking and four other counts on Dec. 29, 2021, by a jury that included Juror 50, as per the New York Times.
Judge Nathan ordered the unusual hearing on Tuesday and made the decision after Maxwell's lawyers, citing the juror's post-trial interviews, that their client deserved a new trial. However, the judge did not say when she would rule on the request and gave the lawyers until Mar. 15 to write their arguments based on the hearing.
According to Fox News, Todd Spodek, the attorney representing the juror, said that his client was planning to invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. Juror 50 said that he shared his experiences of sexual abuse with other jurors during deliberations. He said that he persuaded some of the members of the panel that an imperfect recollection of the abuse did not mean it did not happen.
Honest Mistake
The juror recalled the moment he shared his experience wherein the jury room went immediately silent. Maxwell's lawyers, on the other hand, argue that if Juror 50 answered truthfully on the questionnaire he would have been challenged and excluded for cause in their client's trial.
Judge Nathan wrote after the trial that Juror 50 made several direct, unambiguous statements to different media outlets about his own experience that did not pertain to jury deliberations. She said that the remarks cast doubt on the accuracy of the juror's responses during jury selection.
Juror 50 said that while answering the questionnaire he was distracted and unfocused, but he argued that his own experience with abuse did not influence his decision or approach as a juror in the trial. He also denied tailoring his answers to get a spot on the jury that would work on Maxwell's case, CNN reported.
The individual said that he was careless in answering the questionnaire because he never thought of becoming a juror due to a large number of potential jurors at the courthouse. Nathan questioned Juror 50 for roughly an hour and ordered both parties to submit a filing until next week, after which she will render a decision.
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