CINCINNATI — Attorneys for former Cincinnati City Councilman P.G. Sittenfeld accused a juror of misconduct for making multiple posts on Facebook during the high-profile trial, including during jury selection and on the night before the verdict was announced.
That was 18 days ago.
What happened to that infamous juror, and Sittenfeld’s quest for more evidence to use in a motion for a mistrial, is still unknown.
That’s because U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Cole issued a ruling last week and placed it under seal, meaning the public cannot read it or know what he decided and why.
WCPO is filing a petition with the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals asking Cole to unseal the order. Cole never made public his reasons for keeping it secret in the first place.
“In any public corruption trial like this, the public has a particularly heightened interest,” said Darren Ford, an attorney who is representing WCPO. “Understanding how the federal government is treating a city councilman in a public corruption case is unquestionably of significant public interest.”
After a three-week trial, jurors convicted Sittenfeld of bribery and attempted extortion. He accepted $40,000 in campaign donations from FBI agents who were posing as developers and wanted his help on their Convention Place Mall project downtown.
Sittenfeld was the third council member the FBI arrested in 2020 on public corruption charges as a result of a massive sting at City Hall involving at least three undercover FBI agents and multiple informants who secretly recorded numerous elected leaders.
Defense attorneys filed a motion on July 22 demanding an inquiryinto a juror they said made repeated posts to Facebook during the trial and while the jury was deliberating.
The motion asks the court to conduct a forensic examination of the cell phone belonging to the unidentified juror, who is known as ‘Juror X.’ It alleges that the juror made multiple posts on Facebook that garnered "many comments by others."
Sittenfeld's attorneys allege Juror X posted to Facebook that another juror, referred to as Juror Y, shouldn't have been on the jury because she "hates anyone that shares the same profession as our person on trial. Not cool!!" In the comments to that post, someone shared a news article about the case.
She also criticized another juror for talking too much, saying she, “Doesn’t know a comfortable silence. Kinda wish her tongue would fall out.”
Court employees discovered the juror’s Facebook posts and attorneys were given screenshots of them shortly before the verdicts were announced on July 8.
The jury convicted Sittenfeld of bribery and attempted extortion, but found him not guilty of four other charges.
After the discovery of the Facebook posts, Sittenfeld’s attorneys asked for a mistrial but the judge denied that motion.
Following the jury’s verdict, the judge held a secret hearing in his chambers and allowed Sittenfeld’s attorneys to examine Juror X under oath about her social media postings.
"Juror X was questioned about extraneous influence — specifically, about an Instagram post from the Cincinnati Enquirer that a friend had posted. During this question, Juror X confirmed twice that she did not read or review articles about the case,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Megan Gaffney Painter wrote in her motion to deny the forensic exam. “Juror X also testified that she did not communicate with anyone about the evidence in the case or her opinions about it.”
But Sittenfeld’s attorney, Charlie M. Rittgers, accused Juror X of lying, and giving "spurious and inconsistent" answers as to whether she read the comments others posted about her Facebook posts, answered questions about the trial or revealed which jury she was serving on.
Rittgers also accused Juror X of concealing her online conduct from the judge when Cole repeatedly asked if anyone on the jury had looked at news articles about the case or talked to anyone about it.
“Juror X never spoke up. She was continually dishonest by commission and omission. This dishonestly weighs in favor of granting leave for a forensic exam,” Rittgers wrote in his motion.
But that’s not how prosecutors see it.
“Juror X also never revealed any evidence, never commented on the evidence, or expressed her opinion about the evidence through her social media posts. Rather, Juror X mostly posted about her schedule, the fact of her jury service, and compensation. These posts functioned more like announcements of her experiences as a juror,” Painter wrote in her motion.
Prosecutors say a forensic exam of Juror X's electronic devices would be, “an astonishing invasion of juror privacy — the kind of invasion that would otherwise require a search warrant.”
“This is a gross overreach motivated by the defense’s dissatisfaction with the jury verdict,” Painter wrote.
The online federal court filing system known as PACER shows that Rittger’s motion for a forensic exam of the juror's phone was terminated on Aug. 3. But no order was publicly filed.
A staff member in Cole’s office confirmed that the judge filed his order under seal after an attorney for WCPO inquired via email.
“If the judge decides to order a mistrial and retry the case — the public has a significant interest in understanding the reasons why the judge has done that,” Ford said. “The only way that the public can monitor what is officially happening in court is through its official records, and that’s the docket.”
Instead of sealing the entire order, Cole could have redacted sensitive portions and allowed it to be filed publicly, Ford said, or at least told the public why the ruling was being hidden from view.
“Even if there’s going to be something filed under seal, just providing the public with the reasons why, so explaining the rationale for why something has been withheld from public access,” Ford said.
It is uncertain when the Sixth Circuit will rule on WCPO’s petition, but it could have a far-reaching impact.
“Getting a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is something that will provide guidance to not only the particular judge at issue, but all judges across the territory covered by that court of appeals. So that would be Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee,” said Ford. “Now when judges are faced with the same situation, they have guidance from Sixth Circuit about what is appropriate to do.”
Scripps Mandamus Petition by paula christian on Scribd
