Juror in Ghislaine Maxwell trial to be questioned under oath about whether he lied on the jury form
By Sonia Moghe, CNN
(CNN) -- A juror who helped deliver a guilty verdict in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking trial will be questioned under oath in court about whether he lied on a jury questionnaire about his personal history with sexual abuse, a judge ruled Thursday.
US District Judge Alison Nathan set the date of the hearing for March 8 and also ordered the unsealing of the juror's questionnaire, which will be mailed to the juror's attorney.
The juror's attorney declined to comment when contacted by CNN. CNN has requested a copy of the questionnaire from the court and has also reached out to prosecutors and defense attorneys for comment.
Nathan said in her ruling that she would conduct the questioning at the public hearing with input from prosecutors and defense attorneys, who have been asked to submit questions.
Maxwell, the former girlfriend and close associate of Jeffrey Epstein, was convicted in December 2021 of sex trafficking a minor and four other charges for her role in facilitating Epstein's sexual abuse of minor girls between 1994 and 2004. Maxwell could face up to 65 years in prison and is expected to be sentenced at a later date.
After the verdict was announced, one of the jurors gave several interviews to media outlets in which he said he was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and shared his personal experiences with fellow jurors during deliberations.
The juror, who identified himself to media outlets as Scotty David, gave his first interview to The Independent but also spoke to the Daily Mail and Reuters. He told Reuters that some jurors had issues with the memories of two accusers who took the stand, so he said he shared his own experience with fellow jurors, noting that it helped sway their views.
"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," the juror said in his Reuters interview.
Maxwell's defense team has asked for a new trial, arguing that the juror failed to answer an important jury question honestly.
Jurors were explicitly asked on jury questionnaire forms if they had been sexually abused and, if so, if it would impact their abilities to be impartial while deliberating. It is unclear how the juror in question answered the question on the form.
Nathan emphasized in her ruling Thursday that the "potential impropriety" is whether the juror lied on his juror questionnaire, not his history of surviving abuse.
"To be clear, the potential impropriety is not that someone with a history of sexual abuse may have served on the jury," Nathan said in the order. "Rather, 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 also denied Maxwell's request for a new trial based on the current record, saying the current record "relies extensively" on statements from the juror involving deliberations that the court is "prohibited from considering."
Maxwell's attorneys had requested to question a second juror who told The New York Times they had also been sexually abused -- a request that Nathan denied.
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