U.S. District Judge T. S. Ellis III acknowledged Thursday that he may have been incorrect when he scolded federal prosecutors a day earlier for allowing an expert witness to remain in the courtroom for the duration of proceedings during Paul Manafort’s trial.
On Wednesday, Ellis chided prosecutor Uzo Asonye after Michael Welch, a revenue agent with the IRS, said he had watched the trial from inside the courtroom.
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Asonye said Ellis had allowed the expert witness to stay and said he would check the transcript to confirm. Ellis replied that he didn’t care what the transcript said and typically does not allow any witnesses to stay in the room.
But after the 12-member jury entered the courtroom Thursday, Ellis acknowledged he “may well have been wrong.”
“I may have permitted that,” he said. “Like any human, and this robe doesn’t make me anything other than human, I may have made a mistake.”
Ellis’s admission comes after members of special counsel Robert Mueller’s team filed a motion with the court asking for a correction to the court’s “erroneous admonishment of counsel in front of the jury.”
“The Court’s reprimand of government counsel suggested to the jury — incorrectly — that the government had acted improperly and in contravention of Court rules. This prejudice should be cured,” prosecutors said.
The jury convened Thursday for the trial’s eighth day and has so far heard testimony from Melinda James, a mortgage loan assistant at Citizens Bank.
Manafort applied for a mortgage loan from the institution, and prosecutors allege he submitted false documentation to secure the loan.
Manafort is facing 18 counts of tax and bank fraud. He has pleaded not guilty.
[Also read: Here’s a full wrap of Gates’ testimony in Manafort trial]
