00:00I feel so strongly about this holdout jurors because I was a holdout juror in a case in the
00:04Daniel Rakowitz case. I don't know if people remember it, the butcher of Tompkins Square Park.
00:08And I'm in the New York Times. And apparently several jurors questioned afterwards said one
00:13holdout juror was principally responsible for preventing them from returning a guilty verdict.
00:20That was me. The View co-host Sunny Hostin has landed herself in hot water after she
00:25sensationally claimed on air that she was the lone holdout juror in the notorious Butcher of
00:31Tompkins Square Park case and forced Daniel Rakowitz, the NYC cannibal killer, to be found not guilty by
00:37reason of insanity. But multiple sources from the time directly refute her story. Hostin told the
00:43tale of being the lone jury holdout in the Butcher of Tompkins Square Park case as she discussed the
00:48parallels between that case and Lindsay Clancy's own insanity defense. It was so clear to me in the
00:54jury. And we were sequestered for nine days. One juror threw a chair at me. They were so angry with
00:59me. But one by one, I picked them off and said, what about this? What about that? And we ended
01:03up
01:04all 12 unanimously voting that he was not criminally responsible. Just hungry. See, that's my issue
01:10of insanity. But 35 years ago, jurors told The Post, Newsday, The Daily News and the Associated Press
01:17that the actual holdout was an unemployed man who wanted to keep the trial going so he could continue
01:23getting paid by the court for his civic duty. He was unemployed and liked the $15 a day and the
01:28three free meals, juror Valerie Holmes told Newsday in the aftermath of the verdict. He liked that we
01:33were arguing on and on. Holmes reiterated the claim to The Post and The Daily News, describing the
01:39holdout as being a very determined and manipulative man, determined to get his way. A law enforcement
01:44source from the time also told The Post this week that The Holdout was a man. Meanwhile, Hostin was
01:49quoted as a juror on the case in multiple news clips at the time. But she did not identify herself
01:54as the lone holdout, nor did any of the fellow jurors who talked to the press after the trial.
02:00And her statement from Newsday from the time even seemed to contradict her story.
02:04We had to compromise, but it is obvious to me he butchered the body and he literally got away
02:09with murder. He attempted to commit the perfect crime, she told the paper. She also told The New York
02:14Times, we don't think he intended to kill her, but once he did, he dismembered her body in an effort
02:20to commit the perfect crime. One Newsday article from 1991, however, suggested there were two holdout
02:25jurors who pushed the other ten to find Rakowitz not guilty or risk a hung jury. That story did not
02:32provide any additional details on who the second supposed holdout was, and only focused on the
02:37unemployed man. When asked by The Post, Hostin doubled down on the fact that she was the lone holdout
02:42juror in the infamous case. The shocking case gripped New York City and involved Rakowitz,
02:48who admitted he killed his roommate, 26-year-old dance student and sometimes stripper, Monica
02:53Bierle, in 1989 and then dismembered her body. He also bragged that he boiled her head and made soup
02:59from her brains and fingers, which he ate and then fed to local homeless people. After he was found not
03:05guilty, Rakowitz was committed to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward's Island. A 2005 court hearing
03:11found that he was still too mentally unstable to be released and he should remain in the mental hospital.
