A jury of eight men and four women have convicted 28-year-old Michael Pena of three counts of predatory sexual assault, which carry a maximum sentence of life in prison. However, the jury remains deadlocked on the rape charge, and according to the AP, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Richard Carruthers instructed them to keep deliberating on other unresolved charges, including rape. The Post reports that the 25-year-old victim "burst into audible, gasping sobs" when the jury foreman announced that their deliberations kept resulting in deadlock.
Before the partial verdict was handed down, the trial was mired in confusion when it was revealed that one of the jurors was a friend of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. Lloyd E. Constantine, an attorney who at one point advised former Governor Eliot Spitzer and wrote a revealing account of his tenure, donated $5,000 to Vance's campaign in 2008.
When Justice Carruthers asked Constantine to explain why he didn't speak up about his connection to Vance, he replied that he wasn't biased and had passed "my own subjective test."
According to the Daily News, Pena's attorney was elated: "Confusion is never a bad thing for the defense," Ephraim Savitt said. "He's saying he's neutral. I can accept that."
Savitt's defense has been that Pena, an off-duty cop who drunkenly assaulted the victim on her first day as a Bronx schoolteacher, never penetrated the victim, despite her testimony that he most certainly did. “My client showed her a gun. She was scared to death. He did a terrible thing. He did an unforgivable thing," Savitt told the jury last week, adding that the victim was in such "abject terror" that she fabricated any penetration.
