Despite a recalcitrant juror who held up deliberations for almost a week, James A. Dorsey was convicted Thursday of the savage beating of an elderly pushcart vendor.
It took six days for jurors to determine Dorsey was guilty of robbing Vasiliki Fotopoulous, a Greek immigrant, last year.
Fotopoulous, then 83, was a fixture in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, where she was known as “Grandma.” Her beating, captured on film by a security camera and later broadcast widely, shocked the District.
But Dorsey, 47, argued that the film did not clearly mark him as the guilty man. He also said his confession to the attack was coerced by police.
Jurors reached their verdict only a day after they sent D.C. Superior Court Judge Herbert Dixon Jr. a note saying that they couldn’t reach a verdict because a woman known only as Juror 14 refused
to deliberate.
“The entire jury is extremely frustrated because this individual also appears to be taking this time to gain personal attention and it is no longer about the case we have been presented,” the note stated, according to broadcast reports.
It was not clear what problems Juror 14 had with the case because the judge’s briefing with the lawyers was ordered sealed. But Juror 14 was part of the unanimous panel.
Dorsey will be sentenced in July.
