Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann on Sunday highlighted what he described as a “remarkable” moment during the conclusion of writer E. Jean Carroll’s second defamation trial against former President Donald Trump when the judge warned the jurors against revealing they’d been part of the case amid fears of retribution from Trump and/or his supporters.
Weissmann told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki that “the last time I was in a courtroom where a judge said that to a jury, Vincent Gigante, the former boss of the Genovese family, had been convicted.”
The judge in the Gigante case, Weissmann recalled, told the jurors that “they spoke as one body of jurors” and said that, “While you are legally free to, his strong advice to them was not to speak individually to the press out of concern of retribution from Gigante and his ilk.”
“It is remarkable that that same admonition was said with respect to somebody who was the president of the United States,” said Weissmann. “That is the last time I heard that admonition being given.”
Trump was on Friday ordered by said jury to pay advice columnist Carroll $83.3 million in damages for defamation.
Last year, Trump was found liable for sexually abusing Carroll after she alleged he raped her in a New York department store in the 1990s. In that trial Trump was also found liable for defamation of Carroll after he called her a “fraud.” That jury ordered him to pay $5 million in damages.
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