Paula Duncan, a juror in the Paul Manafort trial, told Fox News on Wednesday that one holdout juror was the “not guilty” vote that kept Manafort from being declared guilty on all 18 counts.
He was ultimately convicted on 8 counts, with the juror’s opposition causing the other 10 to be declared a mistrial.
Duncan, an ardent Trump supporter who was nonetheless swayed by the sheer amount of evidence the prosecutors possessed, said that the jury deliberations were tense and peppered with angry and emotional outbursts.
“It was a very emotionally charged jury room–there were some tears,” she said.
Duncan said that for herself personally, her allegiance to the President made it difficult for her to contribute to the conviction of his former campaign chairman.
“Finding Mr. Manafort guilty was hard for me. I wanted him to be innocent, I really wanted him to be innocent, but he wasn’t,” Duncan said. “That’s the part of a juror, you have to have due diligence and deliberate and look at the evidence and come up with an informed and intelligent decision, which I did.”
