Judge Merchan says the poster claims to be a cousin of a juror with inside knowledge of the outcome.

The US judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money case in New York City has written a letter to prosecutors and the former president’s defence team about a Facebook post in which a person claims to have known the jury’s decision before it became public.

Justice Juan Merchan’s letter says that on Friday “the court became aware of a comment” on the court’s Facebook page, “now labeled as one week old” from a user named “Michael Anderson”.

“My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted,” the post says, according to the judge. “Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!”

BBC News has not verified the post, which has been deleted, or the claims allegedly made within it.

The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and Todd Blanche, Trump’s lead attorney, did not respond to requests for comment.

  • Randomgal
    172·
    6 months ago

    I don’t get it? What is the news here. Someone made a random post on Facebook? Surely a million others also posted with blind certainty that he was going to be convicted, just as a few other millioka must have posted he wouldn’t. What makes this instance different? Is this the glitch to get out of jail free? Just rob a bank and ask your cousins to make a post saying he know you’ll be convicted!

    • jonne@infosec.pub
      21·
      6 months ago

      If the claim in the comment is true it means a juror broke the secrecy rules, and this could make it a mistrial, essentially. I’m guessing they need to find this commenter and work out if what they were saying is true or if it was a troll.

      • Corigan@lemm.ee
        144·
        6 months ago

        For fuck sake… This cannot be the first time someone trolls the court. So anytime sometime happens just make a fake account to plant doubt and go for a mistrial. Like 5mins and a VPN and anyone can get off Scott free if you can afford a lawyer to move for a mistrial. Like fuck this shit.

        Stop giving this man outs, stop making a joke of the justice system.

        • Pfeffy@lemmy.world
          61·
          6 months ago

          Right? Couldn’t somebody just post “I’m Michael Anderson’s cousin and he’s full of shit” and that would balance out the original post since they are both just made up?

        • jwt@programming.dev
          5·
          6 months ago

          “If the claim is true”, means they have to connect the account to someone related to a juror first. So if you make a troll post using a VPN, nothing will come of it (and rightly so).