Juror: 1 holdout prevented 18-count conviction

A juror in New Britain native Paul Manafort’s financial fraud trial says a lone holdout prevented the jury from convicting the onetime Trump campaign chairman on all 18 counts.

Jurors repeatedly tried to persuade the holdout to “look at the paper trail” but she insisted there was reasonable doubt, juror Paula Duncan told Fox News.

“We didn’t want it to be hung, so we tried for an extended period of time to convince her,” Duncan said, adding that the four days of deliberations were so heated that there were “tears” among the 12 jurors. “But in the end, she held out and that’s why we have 10 counts that did not get a verdict.”

The federal jury on Tuesday found Manafort guilty on eight counts; the judge declared a mistrial on 10 counts the jury was deadlocked on. The jury verdict form, which was made public Thursday, confirmed Duncan’s account.

The form also showed that jurors at one point appeared to have been unanimous on convicting Manafort of two additional charges of failing to report foreign bank accounts but scratched out the check marks over guilty. They then wrote in that it was 11-1, with “no consensus” on those counts.