New York (AFP) - A juror in Ghislaine Maxwell's sex crimes trial is to be grilled by a US judge after court documents showed he had failed to disclose his childhood abuse during jury selection.
The saga has clouded Maxwell's guilty verdict -- a jury convicted her in December of sex trafficking minors for late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein following a high-profile trial in New York.
Maxwell's lawyers filed for a retrial in January after juror Scotty David (identified by his first and middle names) told media outlets he had persuaded fellow panelists to convict the 60-year-old by recalling his own experiences as a sex abuse victim.
Judge Alison Nathan rejected that request pending an investigation into whether the man, known as Juror 50, had disclosed his abuse at the questionnaire stage of jury selection.
A document unsealed in court Thursday showed that he had marked the "no" box in response to the question "Have you or a friend ever been the victim of sexual harassment, sexual abuse, or sexual assault?"
Nathan said in a short court order that she would question Juror 50 under oath at a hearing on March 8.
"To be clear, the potential impropriety is not that someone with a history of sexual abuse may have served on the jury," she wrote.
"Rather, it is the potential failure to respond truthfully to questions during the jury selection process that asked for that material information so that any potential bias could be explored."
Jury selection is key to US criminal trials, with prosecutors and defense attorneys sparring to select jurors that they think will sympathize with their case.
Legal experts say that in many instances, cases can be won or lost at this stage.
Nathan is expected to ask Scotty David whether he intentionally answered incorrectly to bias the trial or made an accidental mistake.
She will then need to decide whether he substantially prejudiced the case -- a high bar, legal experts say.
In interviews, the 35-year-old juror said he had helped convince jurors who were doubting the accounts of the two main accusers, "Jane" and "Carolyn."
He said he told them that he did not remember every single detail of the abuse he had received.
Scotty David told a news agency that he "flew through" the questionnaire and could not remember being asked about any personal experiences of abuse.He added however that he would have answered honestly.
Maxwell, 60, was convicted on five of six counts.A sentencing date has been set for June 28 and she faces spending the rest of her life behind bars.
Last week, Britain's Prince Andrew, a friend of Maxwell, settled a sexual abuse lawsuit with Virginia Giuffre, who said she had been trafficked to the royal by Epstein and his longtime companion.
