One of the panelists abruptly pulled from the Donald Trump hush-money jury in New York criticized the judge on Thursday as a coward and the prosecutors as unfair.
Herson Cabreras, formerly known simply as Juror #4, told USA Today in an interview that he was surprised by Thursday’s removal over an unknown criminal case after being appointed Tuesday.
“That surprised me, really surprised me,” Mr. Cabreras stated in the exclusive interview. “I exclaimed, ‘Wow, something else is going on here.'” However, they opted not to take me, and that’s all. What shall I say? So I replied, ‘Fine.'”
Mr. Cabreras, who is in his late 70s, was dismissed after prosecutors cited a 1991 incident in which he was accused of pulling down political campaign posters in a New York suburb, the bulk of which were Republican signs.
He did not name the case in a questionnaire regarding his previous legal problems, but he said he had little memory of it until Thursday when the prosecution questioned about it.
“I didn’t expect they were going to go into my history of 30 years and pull out something I didn’t even remember,” he told reporters. “I just thought it was an excuse” to remove him from the jury.
Mr. Cabreras stated that he anticipated Judge Merchan to intercede, but he let the prosecutors to have their way.
“I looked at him, like, ‘Aren’t you going to say something?'” Mr. Cabreras spoke. “I am sitting there; I am the target, and he is supposed to be judging. And he just let it happen without saying anything.”
He claimed he had been put in a “competition” with the judge, the prosecution, and the defense.
“Everybody wants to look good and fair in front of the public, but they don’t act fair,” he went on to say.
The encounter left Mr. Cabreras with a negative view of Judge Merchan, whom he labeled a “cowardly judge” for allowing the prosecution to dig into details from decades before.
“I feel sorry for the other jurors,” the juror remarked. “If the way they treated me is any indication of how they’re going to treat other potential jurors, then I feel sorry for them.”
USA Today cited a now-famous comment about Mr. Trump made during his initial questioning as one possible reason why prosecutors would want him removed from the jury.
Mr. Cabreras described Mr. Trump as “fascinating and mysterious,” which he dismissed in a USA Today interview as an evident fact implying neither support nor opposition.
Wherever Mr. Trump goes, “he stirs up all kinds of things,” he stated on Thursday. “The guy steps in, and everyone goes nuts. “That is what I meant.”