The juror was among those who convicted Ghislaine Maxwell of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. Photo / Dave Sanders, The New York Times
The juror was among those who convicted Ghislaine Maxwell of conspiring with Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse underage girls. Photo / Dave Sanders, The New York Times
The juror, whose failure to disclose his past abuse has clouded the guilty verdict against Ghislaine Maxwell, would be granted immunity from prosecution.
One member of the jury that convicted Ghislaine Maxwell last year may be forced to testify about whether he intentionally misled the court during the jury selectionprocess — a key question in Maxwell's effort to get a new trial.
The juror, a Manhattan man known as Juror 50, told news outlets after the trial that during deliberations he had described being a victim of sexual abuse. The revelation has clouded the verdict because the juror failed to disclose that history during jury screening before the trial, leading Maxwell to argue she was deprived of a fair and impartial jury.
Maxwell, 60, the former companion of disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted December 29 of sex-trafficking and four of the five other counts against her. At the trial, the jurors heard three weeks of testimony showing Maxwell had helped Epstein recruit, groom and sexually abuse underage girls over the course of a decade.
In a letter made public Wednesday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan told a judge that they were seeking Justice Department approval for an order compelling the juror's testimony at a hearing next week, in which he would answer questions under oath about his actions.
The government acted after Juror 50's lawyer, Todd Spodek, informed the judge, Alison Nathan of US District Court, that his client would "invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination at the hearing." Spodek's letter was also made public Wednesday.
If the juror is required to testify, he would also be granted immunity from prosecution under the order being sought by the office of Damian Williams, the US attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Juror 50 revealed in news interviews after the trial that he had told fellow jurors during deliberations that he was sexually abused as a child and did not tell anyone about that abuse for years. Juror 50 said in an interview with DailyMail.com that as he told his story, the jury room "went silent."
The article also cited him as saying that he had helped the other jurors understand things from a victim's point of view.
In an interview with Reuters, Juror 50 said some jurors had questioned the recollections of two of Maxwell's accusers who had testified at the trial, but after he recounted his story, he said, "They were able to come around on the memory aspect of the sexual abuse."
But in a confidential questionnaire that was administered to prospective jurors before the trial, Juror 50 had checked a box responding "no" when asked whether he had ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse or sexual assault.
Ghislaine Maxwell in 1991. Photo / AP
Maxwell's lawyers, in a brief seeking a new trial, said Juror No. 50 "did not truthfully respond to perhaps the most important question put to potential jurors about their personal experiences — a question that pertained directly to the core allegations against Ms. Maxwell: whether they had been a victim of sexual assault or abuse."
"Had Juror No. 50 told the truth," the lawyers wrote, "he would have been challenged, and excluded, for cause."
The defence and prosecution may use the responses in the questionnaires as they weigh whether to exclude prospective jurors on grounds like bias.
The government, in opposing Maxwell's motion, wrote that a defendant seeking a new trial based on a juror's statements during the jury selection process "faces the heavy burden of establishing both that the juror deliberately lied, and that the juror otherwise would have been struck for cause."
"On the present record, the defendant has not come close to establishing that the extraordinary remedy of a new trial is warranted," the government said.
The government argued for a limited hearing focused on determining whether the juror deliberately lied on the questionnaire about being a victim of sexual abuse, and, if so, whether the judge "would have struck Juror 50 for cause if he had accurately responded to that question, i.e., based on a finding that he could not be fair and impartial."
Judges, in attempting to evaluate the impact of jury room disclosures, may not question jurors about what occurred during their deliberations, but they are allowed to examine statements jurors made during the selection process.
Nathan, in an opinion last week, wrote that after the trial, "Juror 50 made several direct, unambiguous statements to multiple media outlets about his own experience that do not pertain to jury deliberations and that cast doubt on the accuracy of his responses" during jury selection.
The juror's statements were "clear, strong, substantial and incontrovertible evidence" that an impropriety had occurred — "namely, a false statement during jury selection," the judge wrote.
"To be clear," Nathan added, "the potential impropriety is not that someone with a history of sexual abuse may have served on the jury."
"Rather," she said, "it is the potential failure to respond truthfully to questions during the jury selection process that asked for that material information so that any potential bias could be explored."
Nathan ordered Juror 50 to appear at the hearing next Tuesday and respond to her questions under oath. Maxwell's lawyers and the government have been allowed to submit proposed questions in advance.
Spodek and Nicholas Biase, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney's office, each declined to comment.
