A judge has declined to throw out Ghislaine Maxwell's sex trafficking conviction, despite a juror's failure to disclose he'd been a victim of childhood sexual abuse.
U.S. District Judge Alison J. Nathan on Friday refused to order a new trial for Maxwell, who was convicted in December of helping the American millionaire Jeffrey Epstein abuse several teenage girls. The judge ruled weeks after questioning the juror, who said he never intentionally answered a question about sex abuse wrong on a questionnaire before the trial began.
“I didn’t lie in order to get on this jury,” he said.
The juror said at one point that he “skimmed way too fast” through a questionnaire and didn't intentionally give a wrong answer to a question on sex abuse, theAssociated Press reported.
Defense lawyers potentially could have objected to his presence on the jury amid Maxwell's sustained claims that she is innocent.
As the Associated Press reported, the judge in the case also decided that the juror “harbored no bias toward the defendant and could serve as a fair and impartial juror.”
