A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell's child sex-trafficking trial was forced to testify after he indicated he dishonestly answered the jury questionnaire.
REUTERS/Jane Rosenberg
The judge who oversaw Ghislaine Maxwell's criminal trial grilled one of the jurors under oath on Tuesday in advance of a decision whether to grant the convicted sex trafficker a new trial.
Juror #50, who identified himself in interviews using his first and middle name, Scotty David, threw Maxwell's guilty verdict into doubt after he told media outlets that he was himself a victim of sexual abuse and that he discussed his experience in persuading others to return a guilty verdict.
On the stand Tuesday morning, the juror said that before the trial on November 4, he "flew through" the jury questionnaire — where he failed to accurately identify himself as a victim of abuse — in part because he was bored during the jury selection process.
Had Juror #50 disclosed it on the form, it would have given Maxwell's lawyers the opportunity to strike him preemptively from sitting on the jury.
The juror said he was "twiddling my thumbs" for "hours" waiting for courtroom staff to prepare video instructions before the questionnaire, and that he grew restless and "wanted to get out of there," feeling rushed and distracted as other potential jurors handed in their completed forms.
He also said he never expected to be selected for the jury.
"I completely flew through way too fast," the juror said.
A group of 12 jurors selected by US District Judge Alison Nathan found Maxwell guilty in December of trafficking girls to Jeffrey Epstein for sex and sexually abusing several of them herself.
After the verdict, Juror #50 gave media interviews that raised questions about why he didn't disclose his own experience in his jury questionnaire, leading Maxwell's lawyers to demand a new trial.
In the hearing Tuesday, Juror #50 said he was sexually abused by a step-brother and one of his friends on multiple occasions when he was 9 and 10 years old and did not disclose his experience until he was in high school.
At that point, he said, he told his mother, who told the police about the abuse, though he does not believe any charges were filed in connection with the experience.
Juror #50 said he does not linger on the experience, and his memory of his abuse did not occur to him while filling out the questionnaire.
"I don't really think about my abuse anymore because it doesn't define me," he said. "I don't feel like I am the victim of a crime even though I am a victim of a crime."
Juror #50 hired Todd Spodek, the defense attorney most famous for representing fake heiress Anna Sorokin, to represent him in the case.
Spodek previously told the judge in a letter that the juror would use the Fifth Amendment to avoid answering questions in the hearing. If the juror intentionally lied to get on the jury, it could open him up to potential criminal charges for perjury.
In response, prosecutors said they would grant the juror immunity during his testimony, which Nathan approved on Tuesday morning.
US Attorney Damian Williams, the head of the federal prosecutor's office in the Southern District of New York which oversaw the prosecution, was present at the hearing.
Maxwell also attended, wearing a jail-issued blue short-sleeved shirt over a long-sleeved white undershirt.
During her criminal trial in November and December, she wore merino turtlenecks, as to not bias the jury of her guilt.
Maxwell's sister Isabel also attended the hearing, sitting in the front row of the courtroom in downtown Manhattan, but the two did not appear to speak with one another.
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Spodek accompanied Juror #50 to the hearing and asserted his Fifth Amendment right to the judge before she announced she would sign the immunization order.
Before asking Juror #50 her questions, Nathan cautioned him not to speak about the jury deliberation process, limiting her questions to be only about the jury questionnaire and the follow-up oral questioning he submitted to on November 16, before the trial.
The juror said he didn't intend to answer questions about his sexual abuse experience falsely, and that his failure to answer them accurately was among the biggest mistakes of his life.
"I no longer associate with being a victim," he said. "It's part of my feeling process."
"I really don't think about my sexual abuse, period," he added later in the hearing. "I don't tell very many people."
Juror #50 said that his answers didn't affect his ability to be impartial about the evidence presented in the trial.
He also said he didn't lie to try to get on the jury — which experts say would almost certainly result in a new trial — but that he was glad the case turned out to be interesting.
"I did not hope to get on this jury," he said. "But if you're sitting for jury duty, it may as well be interesting."
REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
The juror said he didn't realize he made a mistake on the jury questionnaire until after reading an article about the interview he gave with journalist Lucia Osborne-Crowley, published in The Independent, where he first disclosed his experience.
The juror later gave interviews with Reuters as well as The Daily Mail, where he appeared on camera.
But he said he didn't believe his story would become widely known or that his family or friends would find out about his experience because he did not use his full name, and because he didn't believe people in his social circle followed the Maxwell trial.
The juror posted about being on the trial on Instagram, and friends who reached out to him after the post didn't even know the trial was happening, he said.
Juror #50 testified he also didn't think much about thanking Annie Farmer — one of Maxwell's victims who testified against her in the trial — for sharing The Independent article on Twitter. He had only one follower on Twitter before deleting his account, according to court records.
"Twitter is not something I normally use," he said.
Nathan questioned Juror #50 herself rather than allow prosecutors and Maxwell's defense attorneys to ask him questions directly.
She held two sidebars with the attorneys, where they conferred privately to determine which follow-up questions to ask, during which the juror peered over as if trying to surmise what they were saying.
Outside of the courthouse following the hearing, the juror and Spodek declined to comment.
Nathan didn't immediately rule on whether to grant Maxwell a new trial.
She gave both parties until next week to submit letters with new legal arguments following Juror #50's testimony and then will issue a decision, she said.
