Jurror #10 was a pretty young pregnant lady. I could never really tell if she was supportive of the defense, or the prosecution. It was quite a long time into the trial that everyone was informed that she had been dismissed from the jury. At first rumors went around that it was because of her pregnancy, but it was after the trial that I learned from Frank Carson, and Carmen Sabatino what really went on behind closed doors. This is very interesting, and I think there was an effort by certain people to infiltrate the very jury that was to decide the fate of our former Mayor Carmen Sabatino.

During jury questioning, all jurrors were given a list of potential witnesses that were going to testify during the trial. They were instructed to tell the judge if they knew or had any prior knowledge of any of the people on the list. During this phase of the jury selection, joror #10 admitted that she had some knowledge of Janice Keating, because she had worked on a political campaign. Based on this answer, the judge eventually seated juror #10 on the jury.

Later on, there was discussion behind closed doors whether jurror #10 should be dismissed. Questions were asked to her, and it was revealed that her sister was Kristen Olsen, a newly elected Modesto City Council member, and that this was the political campaign that she had worked on. Judge Stephensohn did not remove her from the jury at this time. I have no idea why she was allowed to stay on the jury.

Finally, after more closed door discussions between the attorneys, and the judge, jurror #10 was called back into closed chambers, and was told that she was being dismissed. At that time, jurror #10 responded by saying "Is it because my husband works for Mike Zagaris?" Now we all know Mike Zagaris was on that witness list, and yet jurror #10 did not admit at that time that she had a connection with him, and she did not admit at that time that she was the sister of Kristen Olsen, who was heavily financed by the building industry, in her successful bid for the Modesto City Council.  In Modesto, Mike Zagaris is Mr. BIG of the building industry. Mike Zagaris is highly suspected as being the person who hired Roger Brown, the Sonora Attorney to write a report that contained lies concerning Carmen Sabatino. The Brown Report was the basis for the 18 search warrants that caused the bogus trial to heppen in the first place.

I think that this was clearly an attempt to poison the jury, and to deny Carmen Sabatino of a fair trial. If not for the good work of Carmen's attorney, Frank Carson, and Private Investigator Dave Wallace, this attempt at assuring a guilty verdict might have actually worked.                               Tux                                                                   

SETTING THINGS STRAIGHT..............The editors of the Stanislaus Free Press Strive to provide the readers with as accurate facts as possible. We were just made aware of an error that we will now correct. Jurror #10's response to Judge Stephenson after being told that she was being dismissed was actually: "Is it because my sister's husband works for Mike Zagaris?" (He is actually an independent contractor.) If there are any more corrections for this, or any other article we will be more than happy to set things straight.          Editor

Comments (3)

Halloween? written by AUSSIEBLUE on September 22, 2006 The whitch hunt continues,so if the former mayor turnes himself in on Saturday, will that be the end of it, you bet your sweet life it won't?, How much is this WHITCH HUNT going to cost the taxpayers of Stanislaus County?. Do the board of supervisors care? NO all they care about is winning at the expense of us all. ... written by stevie on September 22, 2006 It would be nice to see this reported in the Bee. wouldn't it? ... written by jimwoolley on September 22, 2006 You expected less

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