NYC Trial Shaken by Juror’s Secret Ties to Defendant
A Manhattan courtroom recently became the stage for one of the most bizarre legal dramas in recent memory. A trial that had already delivered a guilty verdict in an attempted murder case was suddenly thrown into turmoil when shocking revelations about a juror and the defendant came to light. What unfolded left even seasoned legal professionals stunned, with one judge describing it as “stranger than fiction.”
The case centered around Avery Dunning, a 37-year-old Harlem man convicted of shooting his 41-year-old neighbor in the head back in 2023. The neighbor had confronted him about allegedly abusing his girlfriend, and the confrontation escalated into violence. After deliberating for two days, the jury found Dunning guilty of attempted murder, assault, and other charges. He was facing up to 25 years in prison. But just as his sentencing approached, a revelation surfaced that threatened to unravel the entire process.
It turned out that one of the jurors, referred to in court as Juror No. 8, had been involved with Dunning in the past. Not only had they met before, but they had also filmed several sexually explicit videos together. These recordings, described in court as “largely pornographic,” were discovered by none other than Dunning’s mother. She reportedly found them on his phone after hearing him hint in a monitored jail call that she might come across something disturbing.
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The videos quickly became a flashpoint in the courtroom. Dunning’s defense attorney, Raymond Loving, argued that this was a clear case of juror misconduct. He claimed the juror must have recognized Dunning during the trial and had deliberately withheld that information, which would have required her to be excused. In his words, “Of course, she recognized him.”
The juror, however, told a different story. She admitted to having a “one-night stand” with Dunning years earlier, saying she knew him only by his street name “Ace” and didn’t make the connection until after the verdict was delivered. She insisted that she hadn’t looked directly at him during the trial and therefore hadn’t realized who he was.
Prosecutors weren’t buying it. Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Andrea Kimmel argued that Dunning had manipulated the situation. In her view, he had intentionally kept quiet about his history with the juror, hoping to use it as a backup plan if the trial didn’t go his way. “He has sandbagged this court,” she told the judge, describing the move as an effort to defraud the legal process.
Judge Daniel Conviser agreed. While acknowledging that there had been some degree of intimacy between the juror and the defendant, he ruled that the conviction would stand. To him, the bigger issue was Dunning’s decision to conceal the information until after the jury’s decision. “He could have easily taken care of this whole issue by just telling us what had happened instead of keeping it secret,” the judge said.
As it stands, Dunning remains convicted and faces a lengthy prison sentence. His lawyer has vowed to appeal, but even he admitted that in more than three decades of practicing law, he has never seen anything like this case. For many, the strange saga serves as a reminder that truth can sometimes outdo even the wildest courtroom fiction.
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