“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin said on-air Tuesday that she was a holdout juror in the 1991 murder trial of Daniel Rakowitz, known as the “Butcher of Tompkins Square Park,” but contemporaneous accounts offer conflicting descriptions of the jury’s deliberations.
During a discussion of the holdout juror in the Lindsay Clancy trial, Hostin recounted her experience on the Rakowitz jury, prompting news outlets to compare her account with reporting from 1991.
“And apparently, several jurors questioned afterwards said one holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict,” Hostin said Tuesday while citing a 1991 New York Times report. “That was me,” she added.
While Hostin served on the Rakowitz jury, the New York Post reported that other contemporaneous accounts identified an unemployed man as the principal holdout. The Post wrote that “jurors told The Post, Newsday, the Daily News and the Associated Press that the actual holdout was an unemployed man who wanted to keep the trial going so he could continue getting paid by the court for his civic duty.”
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“He was unemployed and liked the $15 a day and the three free meals,” juror Valerie Holmes told Newsday after the verdict, according to contemporaneous coverage.
The Post also cited a law enforcement source familiar with the case who said, “We were told that the juror who held out was a man. There was no other description.”
Another factor, The New York Post said, was that “Hostin was quoted as a juror on the case in multiple news clips at the time — but she did not identify herself as the holdout, nor did any of the fellow jurors who talked to the press after the trial. Her statement to Newsday from the time even seemed to contradict her story.”
“We had to compromise. But it is obvious to me he butchered the body, and he literally got away with murder. He attempted to commit the perfect crime,” Hostin, then identified as Asunción Cummings, told Newsday.
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The Post noted that “one Newsday article from 1991, however, suggested that there were two holdout jurors who pushed the other 10 to find Rakowitz not guilty or risk a hung jury.”
When contacted by the Post, Hostin reiterated that she was a holdout, saying, “I was. I was the holdout juror.”
NewsBusters Associate Editor Nicholas Fondacaro reported on the story as well, noting that while multiple sources had written about an unemployed male holdout juror, multiple sources had also said that there were two holdout jurors.
“Outside the courtroom at State Supreme Court in Lower Manhattan, jurors said that at the end of deliberations, 10 members of the panel wanted to convict Rakowitz of murder, but two others insisted he was mentally ill and should not be held responsible for Beerle’s death. They said the 10 decided to defer to the two holdouts to avoid a hung jury,” the Newsday article said.
The news article had gone on to indeed mention Hostin, under the surname of Cummings at the time.
“The jurors said that one of the two panel members seeking the insanity acquittal wanted the deliberations to drag on for days.
“‘He was unemployed and liked the $15 a day and the three free meals. He liked that we were arguing on and on,’ said juror Valerie Holmes, a 35-year-old clerk,'” the article continued. “‘We had to compromise,’ said Asuncion Cummings, a 22-year-old paralegal. ‘But it is obvious to me he butchered the body and he literally got away with murder. He attempted to commit the perfect crime.'”
Fox News Digital reached out to “The View” for comment.
