Here's Klasfeld's full
twitter report:
Court is running behind schedule today. Standby.
Maxwell juror Scotty David enters, seated next to his attorney @toddspodek.
"All rise."
Judge Nathan enters.
AUSA Alison Moe for the government.
Bobbi Sternheim for Maxwell.
Judge Nathan:
"I also received proposed questions for both sides, which I have carefully considered in advance of today's hearing."
The juror wishes to be referred to as "Juror 50," despite the fact that he identified himself as "Scotty David" in press interviews.
Judge Nathan agrees to this request.
Q: Juror 50, is it your intention to assert your Fifth Amendment privilege in response [to questions]?
David: Yes, your honor.
Judge Nathan says she has signed the proposed immunity order here. storage.
As a result of that immunity agreement, David cannot be prosecuted for any truthful answers.
Juror 50 goes to the witness box and then steps down to provide his full name privately to the court reporter.
He is now under oath.
David has a binder in front of him.
Judge Nathan refers him to Court Ex. 1—his jury questionnaire. He examines the exhibit for identification and identifies it.
He is asked about question 48 and his "No" answer.
Judge Nathan asks if that is an accurate answer on his questionnaire.
A: "No, it is not,"
Q: "What is an accurate answer to that question?"
A: "Yes, for self."
If it were accurate, he said: ""I would have put, 'I was abused as a child.'"
"It was a family member who is no longer a part of the family and one of his friends when I was nine or 10 years old."
Q: Did this happen on one occasion or on multiple occasions?
A: Multiple occasions.
Q: Did you tell anyone?
A: I did not, for several years until I was in high school.
The juror says it was a stepbrother.
David: "I flew through this questionnaire. I honestly never thought I would be chosen to sit on this jury."
David: "At this point, I was super-distracted."
"There was a lot of talking going on [...] and so I just start going though."
"I didn't spend a lot of time thinking about it."
David said he didn't think his experiences would affect him as a juror.
Asked by Judge Nathan why he didn't think he'd have been selected, David notes the large number of candidates.
But he insists: "I did not set out in order to get on this jury."
As for filling out the forms incorrectly, David testified:
"I completely skimmed way too fast. I was distracted by all the noise going on all around me."
He adds: "I thought it was asking about family, or a friend."
David calls it an "inadvertent mistake."
"This is one of the biggest mistakes I have made in my life."
Asked whether he intentionally answered incorrectly to get on the jury, David responds: "Absolutely not."
He reiterates a variation of that question by answering: "Absolutely not, your honor."
He says he doesn't think of himself as a victim of a crime, even though he knows that he was one.
Asked whether he tailored his answer to be selected for the jury, he responds: "No, your honor. I wasn't even thinking about that."
David: "This is a terrible excuse, but I really didn't think I would be chosen."
David: "I don't really think about my sexual abuse, period. I don't tell many people."
Judge Nathan asks how he can reconcile that statement with his press interviews.
David: "I didn't think this would happen. I didn't lie to get on this jury.
If I lied deliberately, I wouldn't have told a soul."
David: "It was an honest mistake," he says, apologizing.
Pressed on the incongruity with his testimony he doesn't tell people about his abuse, and his telling the international media, David said the testimony of Maxwell's victims inspired him.
"I felt if they could be brave enough, then so can I."
Judge Nathan meets with the counsel for the opposing parties at sidebar.
Nathan returns to questions about whether he completed the questionnaire with diligence. (He previously answered "no.")
"It was definitely inadvertent," he said.
"I just wanted to get done with it."
Q: Would you say that you are distracted easily?
He says it could be, but that it didn't affect his ability to consider the evidence.
Asked why he didn't think his friends and family would learn about his abuse from press interviews, he said: "I wasn't using my full name."
He says he wasn't "ashamed" about it. It's "something that happened" and something that's "common" with people around the world.
David adds: "It wasn't something that I was trying to hide."
"If someone were to ask me if I were abused, I would say yes."
After Maxwell's victim Annie Farmer shared Scotty David's interview, David said: "I thanked her for sharing hers as well."
Asked how he felt when he learned about the mistake on his questionnaire, David said that he was "embarrassed" and "shocked."
Judge Nathan sets a date of March 15, one week from today, for a briefing from both parties arguing about the ramifications of David's testimony.
Adjourned.
