A juror was relieved of her jury duties in the trial of three men accused of plotting to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over concerns that she was flirting with one of the defendants.
On Friday, Judge Thomas Wilson announced that the juror, described by the Jackson Citizen Patriot as “a young woman” had been removed from the jury after she was accused of flirting with defendant Paul Bellar.
Bellar, a member of a paramilitary group named the Wolverine Watchmen, is standing trial with co-defendants Joseph Morrison and Pete Musico in a plot to “storm the state Capitol building and kidnap elected officials,” according to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office.
“It didn’t just happen on one day — it happened over multiple days,” Wilson said of the juror’s behavior. “I decided it’s safer to err on the side of caution.”
The judge’s decision comes two days after attorneys expressed concern about a possible spark between the young juror and 22-year-old Bellar, the youngest defendant charged in the high-profile domestic terrorism case.
“Since the start of the trial... there’s been nonverbal communication between one of the jurors — a female — and Mr. Bellar,” William Rollstin, an attorney prosecuting the case on behalf of the Michigan Attorney General, said during an in-chambers meeting Wednesday.
“The communication has been in the form of eye contact [and] smiling at each other,” he added.
The juror took the decision well, said Wilson, adding that he’d never seen behavior like that in over three decades of practicing law.
But Kareem Johnson, a lawyer representing co-defendant Pete Musico, objected to the judge’s decision, saying that “there was no verbal communication between the two, and the descriptions of the communication are speculative.”
The three men are charged in state court with providing material support for terrorist acts, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, and other charges.
They have pleaded not guilty.
———
