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Lone holdout on Manafort jury blocked conviction on all counts, juror says

The following article by Matt Zapotosky was posted on the Washington Post website August 23, 2018:

This courtroom sketch shows Paul Manafort listening to U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III at federal court in Alexandria. Credit: Dana Verkouteren, AP

A juror in the trial of Paul Manafort said that all but one of the jurors wanted to convict President Trump’s former campaign chairman on every charge he faced — although she criticized special counsel prosecutors as seeming “bored” throughout the trial and said she believed their true motive was to “get the dirt on Trump.”

The juror, Paula Duncan, spoke to Fox News Channel on Wednesday and later to NBC News . She told Fox that jurors “again and again” laid out for the lone holdout the evidence that convinced them that Manafort was guilty. But the holdout, a woman, said she harbored reasonable doubt, Duncan said.

“The evidence was overwhelming,” Duncan said, pointing to prosecutors’ extensive paper trail. “I did not want Paul Manafort to be guilty, but he was, and no one’s above the law.”

View the complete article here.

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