Gigi Jordan Newspaper Interview Fuels More Courtroom Drama
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- There was another legal brouhaha Thursday in the trial of Gigi Jordan, the former pharmaceutical executive and socialite accused of killing her 8-year-old autistic son.
As WCBS 880's Irene Cornell reported, attorneys on both sides were on their feet shouting in court as they responded to questions about a jailhouse interview Jordan gave to The Wall Street Journal.
The newspaper quotes Jordan as saying she rejected earlier plea deals that would have required her to serve a short prison sentence. She said she opted for a jury trial so she could tell her story about what happened to her son, Jude Mirra, according to the Journal. She alleges the boy was sexually abused by his biological father.
Jordan, however, said she was never able to fully tell her story because so much evidence was barred from the trial.
"Having concluded the process, it's disappointing to me that so much of my story couldn't be told, mostly through the preclusion of so much evidence, so much testimony, that we proposed to submit," she told the Journal.
Judge Charles Solomon said Thursday someone was lying. He said he had been involved in the case since February 2010 and there was never any plea deal offered to the defendant.
"I don't like lies," he said.
Meanwhile, the jury began its second day of deliberations. Jurors are trying to determine whether Jordan was in the grip of extreme emotional disturbance when she killed Jude. The defense is intended to reduce a conviction from murder to manslaughter.
Jordan admitted on the witness stand earlier this month that she gave Jude a fatal dose of prescription drugs in February 2010 at the Peninsula Hotel in Midtown.
Jordan's lawyers say she was convinced her mob-connected ex-husband was going to kill her, leaving the child's abusive biological father to care for him. In her mind, her son would have been better off dead, her lawyers said.
In his closing arguments Monday, defense attorney Allan Brenner told jurors that there was no murderous intent when Jordan killed the boy, that she was disturbed and trying to save him from a life of abuse.
Despite that Jude was nonverbal, Jordan testified that the boy learned to communicate with her by typing on a laptop computer and BlackBerry. That was how, she said, he told her about the abuse he endured, which had bizarre satanic elements – from being forced to drink blood and kill animals to being zapped with electricity.
The boy also typed a message saying he wanted to die, Jordan testified.
Prosecutor Matthew Bogdanos argued that for jurors to accept Jordan's defense they would have to believe that Jude, at age 6, began typing comments such as "I want to aggressively punish God" while describing the alleged sexual abuse.
On Wednesday, defense attorney Ron Kuby requested a mistrial, arguing that Solomon refused to let the jury see evidence that might have proved Jordan believed her ex-husband was going to have her killed. The judge rejected the motion.
Jude's father denies the allegations of abuse and has never been charged. Jordan's ex-husband has denied all her allegations and has sued her for slander.
Trained as a nurse, Jordan went on to launch companies that administer drugs to patients in their home. After making an estimated $40 million, she left her career to travel the country seeking medical answers for her son.
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