GHISLAINE MAXWELL'S TRIAL: 'JUROR SHENANIGANS' (PART 1)
I crashed and burned my effort to cover the Ghislaine Maxwell trial for the Frank Report. It was supposed to take 6 weeks, but it took only 3. Defense only used 2 days to bring testimony! As the jury assembled to deliberate, I was five articles behind. I am sure Frank was not pleased with the outcome of the series of articles, and I certainly hated it.
However, I may not have been the only one to crash and burn, with the latest developments that may end in a mistrial and a re-trial of Maxwell. The reason - Juror shenanigans - was clearly anticipated in my interrupted series.
This is an excerpt of the part one of the coverage, posted on the Frank Report:
"I’ve written a lot about the Jeffrey Epstein case, beginning when he hadn’t even been arrested yet – something that not many people dared to do. The same goes for Ghislaine Maxwell. Well before July 2, 2020, when police arrested her on multiple criminal charges, I was researching her and her family and associates. Gearing up for this inevitable day of reckoning, really.
Between her arrest and the beginning of the trial this Monday, 515 days have elapsed. That’s 1 year, 4 months and 27 days. And that’s in the brutal MDC in Brooklyn!
Bail for Maxwell has been denied 5 times, on the obvious grounds that she has multiple nationalities – British, French and American – and enjoys the means and the incentive to escape punishment.
So, up until a few days ago you couldn’t talk to me about Maxwell’s trial being fixed in any way in her favour.
But then,
1) the presiding judge, Allison Nathan, was nominated by Joe Biden for a golden promotion to the Second Circuit, on the eve of the start of the trial.
2) Then, we learned that the daughter of James Comey was going to be one of the prosecutors – and she did not leave a good image while working in the aborted Epstein case, and was allegedly involved in the debacle of the disappearing of the CCTV images from Epstein’s cell.
3) Then, during voir dire, summed up Miami Herald’s Julie K Brown, “one juror apparently forgot to show up, two others couldn’t be found for a time and a third cited financial hardships for not serving. A fourth said her husband surprised her with a vacation.” We all suspect jury tampering when we see these kinds of things unfolding.
4) Finally, the prosecution only used 25 minutes in their opening statements, unlike the vast majority of cases when an hour is well spent on that – as did the defense, in this case.
So, in my mind, all bets were off. The possibility of a fix of some kind could not be discarded. (…)
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The statements to the press by a juror about how he was a victim of abuse, how he may have failed to disclose that before joining the jury, and how he swayed the votes of the other jurors, have put Maxwell's conviction under threat of nullification with a mistrial. In upcoming posts, I will try to examine who benefits from this absurd situation, and what can we learn from all that.