One juror prevented former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort being convicted of all 18 tax and bank fraud charges brought against him amid special counsel Robert Mueller’s federal Russia investigation, claimed a member of the jury.
“It was one person who kept the verdict from being guilty on all 18 counts,” Paula Duncan said during an interview on Fox News late Wednesday.
Duncan, an ardent Trump supporter, described the four days the jury spent deliberating Manafort’s charges as “emotional,” adding there did not seem to be many “fellow” Republican jurors.
Duncan said she found the government’s case against Manafort compelling. While she questioned their motivation for pursuing the now convicted political consultant and lobbyist, she said she was only swayed by the evidence presented in the courtroom.
“Certainly Mr. Manafort got caught breaking the law, but he wouldn’t have gotten caught if they weren’t after President Trump,” Duncan said.
“Finding Mr. Manafort guilty was hard for me. I wanted him to be innocent. I really wanted him to be innocent, but he wasn’t,” she continued. “That’s the part of a juror. You have to have due diligence, and deliberate, and look at the evidence, and come up with an informed and intelligent decision, which I did.”
Manafort was found guilty Tuesday by a federal district court in Virginia of five tax fraud charges for filing false income tax returns from 2010 to 2014. He was also found guilty of one count of failure to file reports of foreign bank and financial accounts in 2012.
In addition, the jury returned guilty verdicts concerning two counts of bank fraud charges related to a $3.4 million loan from Citizens Bank and a $1 million loan from Banc of California.
